
A survey of Chinese media reports indicated that the second-largest foreign land owner in the United States is a Chinese billionaire known to be an active member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Reports show that almost 200,000 acres of Oregonian property are owned by Chen Tianqiao, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of the international investment company Shanda Group.
According to Land Report, Chen purchased 198,000 acres in Oregon in 2015. The Chinese citizen became the second-largest foreign landowner in the US, behind a Canadian family that owns more than one million acres of Maine.
Chen owns around 33,000 acres in the Bull Springs Skyline Forest in Oregon, rich in animals, springs, streams, and forests. Chen is a prominent US urban property owner; his holdings include the tens of millions of dollars worth of the Vanderbilt Mansion in Manhattan, the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, and the Seeley Mudd Estate near Los Angeles.
Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) voiced her worry over foreign ownership of American property, pointing to the CCP’s participation in the timberland acquisition.
The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) first chairman, Mao Zedong, is portrayed by the state-run Beijing Review as someone Chen admires. The fact that Chen’s company headquarters prominently displays Mao’s written works has also been published by other Chinese media sites.
China News Service, an official state news agency, reports that Chen has a favorite phrase from Mao Zedong, which says that tactically, we should treat every enemy with the seriousness they deserve, but strategically, we should hate them all.
According to a report, Governors from the Republican Party are looking more closely at Chinese property ownership in the United States, especially in the agricultural sector, because they worry about a possible danger to national security.
The agricultural property within a 10-mile radius of critical military sites in the State of Missouri is banned from being purchased by people or corporations from countries identified as foreign foes, according to Executive Order 24-01, issued by Republican Governor Mike Parson of Missouri on January 2nd.