Texas targets Chinese land ownership

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- Texas lawmakers on Wednesday convened to consider legislation to limit "hostile foreign organizations" from owning Texas land and assets, pointing to security threats that national security experts testified could stem from Chinese-affiliated companies operating in Texas.

"The United States is under a pervasive threat from the Chinese Communist Party, from Russia, from Iran, and from North Korea," Brian Cavanaugh with American Global Strategies said. "It's not a conflict where we're targeting military versus military. They've actually taken an asymmetric approach where they're targeting civilian critical infrastructure. It's economic warfare, lawfare, and a fundamental threat to the general population."

Nationwide, foreign entities own about three percent of U.S. farmland -- nearly all of them friendly nations. China owns just one percent of that three percent. However, Chinese entities own more land in Texas than any other state, at about 162,000 acres.

Critics pose that land could present risks of espionage and economic influence. Those concerns have led 24 states to prohibit or limit foreign land ownership.

Last year, Texas Republicans tried to pass a sweeping bill to ban property ownership for all citizens from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The bill failed after a groundswell of criticism from Asian Americans.

"That is plainly racist, and our community will not stand for it," State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said. "If they want to talk about critical infrastructure, it's already been addressed. What they're talking about is homeownership, is business ownership. It's basically saying, 'no Asians, no Chinese are welcome here.'"

Lawmakers alluded to avoiding past missteps in next year's legislative session, narrowing the next bill to target entities rather than individuals.

"Any affiliation with any business that's owned or operated by the Chinese Communist Party, that's a state-owned enterprise and it's going to be doing the business of the Chinese government," Cavanaugh said. "I think they're going to tighten up the parameters on this one, probably have some of this more specific and more zeroed-in, and that will hopefully address a lot of concerns that came up last session."