The Biden administration announced that they are against a bill that would prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from purchasing land in the United States.
In a statement of administration policy, the White House wrote that the “Administration opposes H.R. 3334, the ‘STOP CCP Act,’ which would impose mandatory sanctions and visa restrictions on members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party determined to have played a significant role in certain People’s Republic of China (PRC) policies regarding Hong Kong, Taiwan, and minority groups in China, among others.”
While the statement noted that the Biden administration has “deep concerns about PRC policies related to human rights violations,” the White House believes that the bill would “make the imposition of sanctions and visa restrictions mandatory against an entire tier of PRC leadership.”
“The legislation’s mandatory sanctions against PRC leadership would likely cut off any channels of communication between our two governments and undermine the Administration’s efforts to build diplomatic consensus on China, thereby destabilizing U.S.-PRC relations and undermining U.S. national interests while having virtually no discernible impact on the PRC’s approach to human rights or Taiwan,” the statement read. “It is imperative that flexible sanctions policy be preserved so that the Administration can hold PRC officials accountable as appropriate while responsibly managing the U.S.-PRC relationship to prevent competition from veering into conflict.”
The Stop CCP Act would “provide for the imposition of sanctions on members of the National Communist Party Congress of the People’s Republic of China, and for other purposes.”
Conduct that would lead to sanctions includes violating the “autonomy of Hong Kong,” behaviors aiming to “harass, intimidate, or result in increased aggression towards the people of Taiwan,” and anything that would “contribute to political oppression or violation of human rights of individuals or societal groups within the People’s Republic of China, including Uyghur Muslims.”
Recent reports have found that Chinese entities have been purchasing farmland situated near U.S. military bases, raising national security concerns.
Chinese farmland is now connected to 19 military bases, according to a report from the New York Post, including Fort Liberty, Fort Cavazos, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, and MacDill Air Force Base.
According to retired United States Air Force Brigadier General Robert S. Spalding III, these locations “can be used to set up intelligence collection sites, and the owners can be influential in local politics as we have seen in the past.”
