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.”
Last year, the Wall Street Journal recorded more than 100 attempted military facility breaches by Chinese parties.
Breaches often occur in areas known for tourism.
One of the more notable instances of Chinese individuals claiming to be tourists occurred at Alaskan military bases. One solder described to USA Today an incident where a vehicle passed a security checkpoint and was found with a drone.
Alleged “tourists” could leave sensors that pick up communications, heightening the national security risks posed by these individuals.
The high number of attempted breaches led to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability launching an investigation into the matter.
Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, wrote in a letter to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) heads, “According to a recent report, Chinese nationals, sometimes posing as tourists, have repeatedly accessed, or attempted to access, U.S. military bases and other sensitive government facilities as often as one hundred times in recent years.”
They emphasized that these “efforts to access U.S. military bases and facilities raise concerns about what these Chinese nationals are seeking to access and for what purpose.”
