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Chinese firm bought North Dakota farm near US Air Force drone base: report
By Ariel Zilber
July 1, 2022 4:55pm Updated
A Chinese company’s purchase of farmland in North Dakota just down the road from a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology has lawmakers on Capitol Hill worried about potential espionage by Beijing, according to a report.
Fufeng Group, a Shandong, China-based company that specializes in flavor enhancers and sugar substitutes, recently purchased 300 acres of farmland near Grand Forks, North Dakota, a rural area that lies about a 90-minute drive from the Canadian border.
Grand Forks is also 40 miles away from Grafton, North Dakota, where a limited liability company believed to be controlled by billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates recently paid $13 million for thousands of acres of potato farmland, causing a stir among locals.
Three North Dakotans sold the land to Fufeng Group for $2.6 million, according to CNBC.
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Fufeng Group said it is planning to use the land to build a $700 million corn milling plant that would create at least 200 jobs as well as residual opportunities for logistics, trucking, and other services.
But US military officials are raising the alarm nonetheless. Senior Air Force officers circulated a memo in April warning that the presence of Fufeng Group in Grand Forks, a town of just 60,000 people, was a national security threat.
“Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets,” wrote US Air Force Maj. Jeremy Fox.
A Chinese firm with close proximity to such data “would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to United States’ strategic advantages.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) has also expressed opposition to the presence of Fufeng Group, which he views as a front for the Chinese government.
“I think we grossly under appreciate how effective they are at collecting information, collecting data, using it in nefarious ways,” Cramer told CNBC...