A Chinese government -linked company bought a huge plot of land just miles from a crucial military drone base in North Dakota .
Fufeng Group, a massive agricultural company with strong ties to Beijing , purchased 370 acres as a location for its new wet corn mill in the agribusiness park in Grand Forks, a short distance from Grand Forks Air Force Base .
The Grand Forks base is one of the key locations for the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone , a “remotely piloted aircraft with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities” used by the United States around the world; the drone “relies on the maintenance provided by Airmen in the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron” at Grand Forks. Last year, a $64 million Global Hawk drone crashed 7 miles from the base.
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RQ-4 Global Hawk drones have been celebrated by the Air Force for "providing warfighters with an evolutionary high-altitude, long-endurance ISR capability" and have been used in missions since 2001.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned in May that Fufeng has “ties to the Chinese government” and “ties to the" Chinese Communist Party. The security commission noted that the U.S. air base “houses some of the United States’ top intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities” and that “the location of the land close to the base is particularly convenient for monitoring air traffic flows in and out of the base, among other security-related concerns.”
Fufeng business filings state that Fufeng Group Chairman Li Xuechun “is a member of the Shandong Province 12th People’s Congress,” which is a part of the ruling CCP’s governing structure. The Chinese company also said this year, in response to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, that it controls Xinjiang Fufeng Biotechnologies based in Xinjiang and that it “intends to continue the sale of products from Xinjiang Fufeng to the United States.”
Air Force Maj. Jeremy Fox penned an April memo stating that “if proximal access were given to our adversaries, and their collections were directed at us, it would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to [the] United States’ strategic advantages.”
Col. Timothy Curry, a commander at the air base, told Grand Forks City Hall in June that Fox’s memo was just a set of “ideas” and that “some are plausible, some are less,” according to the Grand Forks Herald. Curry added, “I still do not have any leadership relaying a clear security threat.”
Concerns over the land buy come after Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and John Hoeven (R-ND) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to “conduct a review of Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group’s recent purchase.” The senators said the proximity of the land to the base "led to concern that Fufeng operations could provide cover for PRC surveillance or interference with the missions located at that installation, given Fufeng Group’s reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”
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Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act in April 2021 to “restrict any effort” by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea “to buy U.S. land within 100 miles of a U.S. military installation, or 50 miles from military areas.”
However, some have pushed back on the criticisms. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum told the Grand Forks Herald in January that “with Fufeng in Grand Forks, it will be North Dakota — not China — that reaps the benefits of the jobs, facilities, economic activity and tax revenue.”
The Department of Agriculture said in 2018 that “the incorporation of agricultural investment into broader geopolitical objectives is reflected by the prominence” of the Chinese government’s “Belt and Road” initiative.
