Posted on 01/03/2023 9:33:40 AM PST by Red Badger
“I’ve come to expect so little from the federal government,” Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told Newsmax. “Even at that standard, this was underwhelming, to say the least.”
The senator was referring to the Biden administration clearing a Chinese company to own 370 acres of land within 12 miles of Grand Forks Air Force Base in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
As a result, China will be able to use a proposed $700 million corn milling plant on the site to spy on military communications and even disrupt them. In Beijing, they must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the inability of the U.S. to protect some of its most sensitive communications.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a Treasury Department-led interagency task force, decided that the purchase was not a “covered transaction” within the meaning of Section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950. Therefore, CFIUS, as the agency is known, decided it did not have jurisdiction to block the land purchase.
CFIUS is correct in its statutory reading. As trade and investment expert Alan Tonelson told Gatestone, the task force “did not need more than five minutes to determine that it did not have the authority to stop the sale.”
The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 authorized CFIUS to review, among other things, purchases by foreign parties of land close to “specific airports, maritime ports, or military installations.” Those military facilities are listed in an appendix to regulations.
“Grand Forks Air Force Base did not make the cut,” Tonelson, who blogs at RealityChek, said. “The decision of the Congressional authors of the recent CFIUS reform to permit any foreign purchase of any land near any U.S. military installation was a clear case of legislative malpractice.”
Moreover, the failure to include all military installations in the implementing regulations was a clear case of regulatory malpractice.
As a result of these enormous mistakes, Fufeng USA, a subsidiary of a Shandong province-based agribusiness giant, is, at least for the moment, free to build its wet corn milling and biofermentation plant in Grand Forks.
Fufeng USA said it was “pleased” with the decision. Chinese war planners must be ecstatic. (RELATED: BETSY MCCAUGHEY: The Left’s ESG Scam Is A Mirror Image Of CCP-Style Thuggery)
“The Chinese will now have the ability to conduct passive, persistent surveillance of both signals controlling experimental drones that are routinely tested at that USAF facility as well as signals that are routinely beamed to and from sensitive U.S. military satellites,” said Brandon Weichert, author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower,” to this publication.
Yet that is not all. “The worst-case scenario involves active sabotage of operations at the Grand Forks facility,” Weichert points out. “Should the U.S. and China end up in a shooting war over, say, Taiwan, Fufeng’s property near the Air Force base could be used to send malicious signals to jam passing satellites or disrupt the operation of drones. We have made ourselves vulnerable on our own territory.”
This is not just a theoretical concern. In the Chinese Communist Party’s top-down system, no Chinese entity or individual can resist one of its demands. Moreover, Articles 7 and 14 of China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires every Chinese party to spy upon receipt of an order to do so.
So, what to do?
“The fight is not over,” said Jodi Carlson, a Grand Forks resident, to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, referring to the Fufeng plant.
President Joe Biden can use his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to block the sale of the Grand Forks land and the building of the milling facility.
For future cases, Tonelson says, “either the law needs to be rewritten immediately to bring such cases under CFIUS purview or the President should issue an executive order mandating this change.”
There is a larger issue. As Weichert asks, “What other purchases by foreigners have slipped through the cracks?”
“As long as we’re talking about fixing things, we ought to start with the most serious problem: The Committee is chaired by Treasury, which never saw a foreign investment it did not approve,” Frank Gaffney, vice chair of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, told Gatestone. “This means, as a practical matter, that an agency that basically doesn’t give a damn about national security is entrusted with running a process that supposedly evaluates and protects national security.”
Consequently, CFIUS rarely turns down foreign purchases, “precious few” as he says.
Gaffney believes the CFIUS mandate must be broadened “to include any foreign investment that threatens our national security interests or, for that matter, other vital interests, in the face of unrestricted and especially economic warfare.”
China’s regime, for instance, has for decades launched broad-based assaults on America, and the current CFIUS framework is inadequate to deal with such threats.
Yes, America is strong because of its open system, which has allowed foreign parties to invest and strengthen the American economy. Yet China’s regime, which has declared a “people’s war” on the U.S., uses investments to undermine America.
In wartime — the Communist Party believes it is currently in such a struggle with America — Washington needs to prohibit all investments from China, especially ones near critical Air Force installations in North Dakota.
This is an updated version of an article that first appeared at GatestoneInstitute.org.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.
Bad decision making? He’s making exactly the decisions the Chinese tell him to!
10% to the Big Guy
Is Hunter on the board?
Indeed. This is not sloppiness or incompetence. This is China trying to spy on us, and this is the federal government eagerly helping the Chinese to do so. Our government hates our country.
The ChoComs paid good money for the Democrats and expect a return on the investment.
Actually they’re laughing
I see no, none, zero, zip, nada indications that they don’t.
The Xi/Putin-funded Greens, who are involved in anything that undermines the US...
The local Republicans in the area in North Dakota itself the mayor and council members were the first to endorse this Chicom factory in their backyard.
Biden is nothing more than a commie sell POS. Yet, this country is more concerned about Trump’s taxes than the sell out of the American people.
The Bidens have so much money and baggage from China that they can never say no to their masters in Beijing. We have the Manchurian President in cold blooded living color.
More like smiling as they nod their heads and think: “I TOLD you we had enough on this clown to get whatever we want”
I don’t think Joe can even say what someone tells him.i
I have been shaking head
. Wondering how the Dems can put a senile Joe in the seat
China is figuring out the best move.. Chances like this dont come often
President Sniffer probably offered to let the Chinese build a base ON THE AMERICAN BASE but the Chinese thought that would be too obvious.
And the press bimbos and pretentious 'men'? Well, the story wasn't included in their 'news packet' and they don't want to risk losing that 'source'. Here's what it means for press bimbos: the US will not be able to protect news centers in New York and Washington.
The Rosenbergs are laughing their asses off.
Bingo. The Chinese call it "capturing the elite" more efficient than a shooting war.
Or they are making plans to make a move on all their desired plans, while we have an idiot in charge
or it’s getting to the Chinese Communist Party level
Ping
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