TOM LEONARD: China's spy balloon is latest proof of People's Republic's ... trends now
What could a giant balloon over a Montana nuclear weapons base, a corn mill on 300 acres of prime North Dakota farmland, a wind farm in a windless stretch of Texas, a popular social media platform, and a nondescript office building in downtown Manhattan possibly have in common?
The answer is causing growing alarm among US politicians and officials – for it's China.
Now while the eyes of millions of the Americans are turned to the skies – tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon that's been drifting over the country for days, hard experience has taught America to assume the worst when it comes to Beijing.
Fears of growing Chinese Communist government surveillance of Americans are no longer the stuff of spy movies and conspiracy theories.
The threat is real. And whether it's unusual purchases of agricultural land near military installations, clandestine police stations, suspicious algorithms, or balloons, they all in one form or another pose a potential risk to America's national security.
COMMUNIST EYES IN THE SKIES
Beijing will no doubt complain bitterly if U.S. politicians, experts and ordinary citizens get their demand to shoot down the suspected high-altitude surveillance tool floating over America.
China has rejected accusations it is a spy balloon, claiming it was actually a 'civilian airship' used mainly for weather research. But that explanation was quickly knocked down by the Pentagon. 'The fact is, we know that it's a surveillance balloon,' said a spokesman.
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor aircraft were scrambled to 66,000 feet after the balloon was detected in US airspace and they were apparently ready to blow it out of the sky.
President Joe Biden reportedly wanted to do just that until he backed off on the 'strong' recommendations of defense officials, who warned of collateral damage caused by falling debris.
The US – which has described the incident as 'unacceptable and irresponsible' - has also challenged Chinese claims that the balloon deviated from its planned course because of winds and has only 'limited self-steering capability'.
A Pentagon spokesman countered: 'The balloon is maneuverable, clearly it's violated US air space, and again we've communicated that fact to the [People's Republic of China].' That's why the balloon's flight path over the super-sensitive Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of the bases that houses America's intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal, raised concern.
Malmstrom AFB, known as America's 'doomsday' base, maintains 150 Minuteman III ICBs across 13,800 square miles of central Montana, making it the biggest complex of nuclear arms in the western hemisphere.
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor aircraft were scrambled to 66,000 feet after the balloon was detected in US airspace and they were apparently ready to blow it out of the sky.
However, sitting nearly smack down in the middle of Montana, 200 miles from Canada, it is curious – to say the least – that a wayward balloon would just so happen to pass directly over it.
The military says the balloon would only have been capable of capturing images of limited intelligence value and nothing that would not have been visible to Chinese satellites, but that has done little to calm nerves.
In response to the incident, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled a weekend visit to China, offering to reschedule under different 'conditions.' Blinken would have been the first Biden administration cabinet secretary to visit China and the first secretary of state to go there in five years.
Whether or not the balloin was intended to spy or disrupt the Blinken visit remains to be proven, but those tasked with America's national security are understandably reluctant to take anything China says at face value.
DC AGREES ON ONE THING – CHINA IS NOT A FRIEND
US suspicions over Chinese government 'infiltration' - shared by both Republicans and Democrats - are hardly surprising given that China's autocratic premier Xi Jinping has increasingly demanded the country's businesses conform to the aims of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chinese corporations are left in little doubt by the Beijing regime that they exist principally to further government goals rather than make profits.
Last month, Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced that he intended to ban big and 'aggressive' Chinese land purchases in his state.
'You don't want them buying farmland, controlling our food supply. You don't want them near military bases,' he said. 'But do you want them building a resort in Florida either? I don't.'
Now, Gov DeSantis has regularly warned about China. Last year, he sounded the alarm shortly after a report showed Chinese real estate investors spent more than $6 billion in the US in a year - more than investors from any other foreign country. And sunny Florida appears to be their favorite - accounting for nearly a quarter of all similar purchases in the US.
DeSantis is hardly a lone voice. In December, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer cheered the Biden administration's move to block CCP-backed technology company, YMTC, from purchasing critical technology from U.S. businesses.
'The entanglements of these companies with the CCP and the Chinese military are too treacherous,' he declared. The question for American policymakers today is: How 'entangled' are we?
LAND GRABS WITH 'CURIOUS NEIGHBORS'
Major land purchases by Chinese entities now rarely pass off without controversy - particularly when there appears to be a military dimension.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, Chinese ownership of American farmland has soared 20-fold in a decade from $81 million in 2010 to $1.8 billion in 2020. And several Chinese firms have in recent years bought or tried to buy large plots of land near US armed forces bases.
In November 2021, the city of Grand Forks in North Dakota announced that Fufeng Group, headquartered in Shandong, China, wanted to build a corn mill there on a vast muddy stretch of land.
The company had identified a 370-acre plot that just happened to be only 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which in turn just happens to be home to some of America's key intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
The base hosts the 319th Reconnaissance Wing which operates the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude, remotely piloted surveillance plane, and will also house a crucial new space communications center.
The information that flows through this facility form 'the backbone of all U.S. military communications across the globe,' according to South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson.
A coincidence or something else?
A letter sent to the Biden Administration by Johnson and 50 other Republicans warned of Fufeng Group's 'close links to the Chinese Communist Party.' In fact, the president of Fufeng, Li Xuechun, is allegedly an active member of the CCP.
'By law, Chinese businesses are required to bow to the demands of the Chinese Communist Party – a regime that hates us and wants to overtake the United States at every opportunity,' said Senator Marco Rubio, Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, summing up these land purchase fears. 'We shouldn't treat this as a regular real estate deal.'
On Tuesday, after more than a year of debate, the U.S. Air Force warned that the 'project presents a significant threat to national security.'
On Tuesday, after more than a year of debate, the U.S. Air Force warned that the 'project presents a significant threat to national security.'
In a sharp about-face, the mayor of Grand Forks said he'll do what he can to block
