Why is China buying so much American farmland?

More to the point: Why is China buying so much American farmland near American military installations?

China has been buying up strategically placed farmland next to military installations across the US, raising national security fears over potential espionage or even sabotage.

The (New York) Post has identified 19 bases across the US from Florida to Hawaii which are in close proximity to land bought up by Chinese entities and could be exploited by spies working for the communist nation.

They include some of the military’s most strategically important bases: Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in Fayetteville, North Carolina; Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood) in Killeen, Texas; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California, and MacDill air force base in Tampa, Florida.

Robert S. Spalding III, a retired United States Air Force brigadier general whose work focuses US-China relations told The Post: “It is concerning due to the proximity to strategic locations.

To say this is a threat to national security is a gross understatement, especially considering that these land purchases are only part of the picture. There's much more to it; China is ambitious yet at the same time approaching desperation. Their economy is a house of cards, their population is aging, and there may not be a China in another couple of generations unless something changes. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparently has its eyes on the United States, and it's not a friendly gaze they are turning our way.

“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,” he added.

“It is alarming we do not have laws on the books that would prevent the Chinese from buying property in the US.”

Under the guise of farming, the Chinese landowners could set up reconnaissance sights, install tracking technology, use radar and infra-red scanning to view bases or attempt to fly drones over them as ways to surveil military sites, sources told The Post.

EXCLUSIVE: Map shows Chinese-owned farmland next to 19 US military bases in ‘alarming’ threat to national security: experts https://t.co/7LYbLbi88k pic.twitter.com/401yvNu9Jc

— New York Post (@nypost) June 20, 2024

The rest of the picture doesn't give us much cause for comfort. Chinese nationals are building illegal biolabs in America - for what? Chinese nationals are flooding into the country illegally across our open southern border - for what? China - and by China, I mean the Chinese Communist Party - is recruiting young American skulls full of mush from our elite universities - for what?

Related: Illegal Chinese Biolab Operator Pleads Not Guilty, Claims Feds Destroyed His 'Revolutionary' Work 

These are not the acts of a friendly nation.

Consider this: We have a bellicose nation, one that seeks to supplant the United States as the primary global superpower. They are buying land near major American military bases. They are importing thousands of young, military-aged men into our country, mostly illegally, and in this, they are aided and abetted by the Biden administration's absent border enforcement policies. We have what could very well be bioweapons laboratories in our country, operated by Chinese nationals. One doesn't need to be Sun Tzu to figure out the possible actions China may be planning. And they aren't the only threat we face.

See Related: Risk of Terror Attack in United States Shockingly High - Guess Why?

China, though, isn't Iran. Iran could hurt us. They are the world's greatest state sponsor of terrorism, and they could set up and sponsor an October 7th-style attack on the United States that could kill thousands. But China is, legitimately, a superpower. They have a navy worth the name; while they are primarily a coastal defense force, without the at-sea replenishment assets to control the Pacific, they are capable of showing up off Taiwan - or Japan. They have nuclear weapons and missiles to fire them. And they have thousands of people right here, in the United States, and now we see just how much land they have purchased, suspiciously near a bunch of sensitive U.S. military installations. They could, arguably, hurt us much worse than Iran could.

China is looking our way with a narrowed gaze, and we ignore this at our peril. Sooner or later, this will come to a head, and it won't be pretty.

But, at least these American military bases will no longer have insensitive names.