IT’S COME TO THIS: North Dakota town rejects Chinese project near US military base after Biden administration refuses to act.
A small city in North Dakota rejected a Chinese government-linked agricultural project located right near a key U.S. military drone base after the Biden administration refused to act against the “significant threat to national security.”
Early last year, Fufeng Group, a massive agricultural company with strong ties to Beijing, purchased 370 acres as a location for its new wet corn mill near the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
After months of consideration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States declined to block the project despite urging from North Dakota’s Republican senators and other congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill. However, the Grand Forks City Council stepped in on Monday to unanimously block the Fufeng project from moving forward. The vote came just days after a Chinese spy balloon was allowed to traverse the U.S., including floating over a Montana military base, before being shot down off the coast of the Carolinas.
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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 U.S. around the world.
Last year, dozens of House Republicans also warned top Biden Cabinet secretaries about the “alarming” efforts by the Chinese government-linked company.
When the sale was first announced last year, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, also a Republican, initially told the Grand Forks Herald 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.”
And the spying and sabotage from the CCP as well.