It’s a little like selling the rope, but it’s selling the land instead
It was Lenin (or Stalin, or Marx) who supposedly said: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
Whoever really said it, it’s one of those pithy witticisms that encapsulate some sort of truth, in this case the fact that under a capitalist system there’s a large risk that some people (or perhaps many) will, in order to make money, do something that ends up undermining the entire system. Either they’re not far-sighted enough, don’t care or would like to actively sabotage the system, or they have decided that the short-term gain is worth the risk.
The decades-long outsourcing to China of so much of what used to constitute the US economy is a good illustration. Trump tried to stop or reverse it, but Trump is no longer president and there were and still are a lot of people set to lose money if it were to happen.
China is still a Communist country in which the ruling and only party is the Communist Party. But it’s not your father’s Communist Party, if your father was Stalin or Mao. It’s this kind of Communist Party:
During the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping directed the CCP away from Maoist orthodoxy and towards a policy of economic liberalization. The official explanation for these reforms was that China is still in the primary stage of socialism, a developmental stage similar to the capitalist mode of production. Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CCP has emphasized its relations with the ruling parties of the remaining socialist states, and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties each year.
So China got into the capitalism game, but it’s a capitalism controlled by Communists (kind of like the way we might be headed?). Here’s some news that’s relevant:
One of the most underreported stories in the media right now is the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to buy large areas of land throughout the United States…
Republican senators Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Tom Cotton of Arkansas are introducing a bill to stop this from going further.
Here’s the bill. From a press release:
“Chinese investments in American farmland put our food security at risk and provide opportunities for Chinese espionage against our military bases and critical infrastructure. Instead of allowing these purchases, the U.S. government must bar the Communist Party from purchasing our land,” said Cotton.
“We cannot continue giving our top adversary a foot in the door to purchase land in the United States and undermine our national security,” said Tuberville. “I hope my colleagues will recognize the importance of our bill and join the effort to prohibit Chinese Communist Party involvement in America’s agriculture industry.”
In the olden days – and not all that long ago – this would have had bipartisan support. Now I believe it has zero chance of passing. I’m not sure it would pass even if Republicans had control of Congress, although it certainly might. But too many people in US government are also compromised by their own ties to Chinese interests and Chinese money.
NOTE: This post made me think of the first line of Robert Frost’s “The Gift Outright.” It’s far from my favorite poem of his and I don’t think it’s one of his best, but I like that first line:
The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
Even if you remember Frost reciting that poem at JFK’s inauguration, as I do, you may not realize this:
Robert Frost was the first poet to speak at the inauguration of a president, reciting from memory “The Gift Outright,” when the glare of the sun prevented him from reading “Dedication,” a poem he had written specially for the occasion.
Looking at the text of that poem today, I’d say it’s not the least bit memorable, just a bit of verse tossed off to order and nothing like Frost’s great, great works, of which there are so many I’d be hard-pressed to choose my favorites. I do know the list would be long.
I have stopped recognizing our country. It just seems to me, not many years ago, this very concept (that of Communists purchasing vast swaths of our real estate) would have been utterly unthinkable.
This is an escalation of what started under the Clintons who sold US missile guidance technology to the Chinese in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation when Bill left office.
There are two other clarions who have pointed out the Chinese land grab agenda and sounding the alarm. One is Kyle Bass, a Texan who began sounding the alarm when a CCP ex-army, now Xinjiang-based real estate tycoon Sun Guangxin began buying up land, including a strategically sensitive plot next to Laughlin Air Force Base in South Texas, with the aim of installing a wind farm – in other words an infrastructure project directly connected to the utility grid, where there typically is little wind.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2021/08/09/why-a-secretive-chinese-billionaire-bought-140000-acres-of-land-in-texas/?sh=1c0a5e5878c3
The other is Ross Kennedy, who is a logistics infrastructure expert, among the few who accurately characterized beforehand the supply chain issues that would result in the current shortfalls in inventory that the US has been dealing with for the past year. Last year Kennedy discovered and brought to light a CCP-led effort to form a joint venture for protein feed processing in Grand Forks, ND. This is now getting some scrutiny:
https://www.kxnet.com/news/top-stories/fufeng-project-in-grand-forks-under-national-scrutiny/
Once again, the story begins with a land purchase near a US military facility, Grand Forks AFB, with a stated intent of forming a joint venture that has the endorsement of City Council, whose individual members seem terribly reluctant to discuss the details of the commitment they are forming on behalf of the city they manage.
Finally, it would appear that the FBI is now taking an interest in several Huawei Communications installation across the heartland that appear to be capable of interfering, perhaps intercepting, high-security, national-defense-related communications.
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/fbis-probe-finds-huawei-equipment-can-intercept-communication-on-us-nukes-report-articleshow.html
Interestingly, there are a few publications out there in poorly-written English that pooh-pooh this, fairly transparent disinformation efforts from a foreign source.
It is very good to see this getting national attention and focus from the intelligence sector.
Wonder what the response would be if Russia started buying up Farm Land here in the US. No, I really don’t wonder. China buying up FL is as bad as Gates buying up FL to take it out of production.
We went on a very disturbing trip to the Hudson River Valley in the summer of 2018. Disturbing for a number of reasons, but one was our trip to visit the Academy at West Point. We had passed a sign for the “New York Military Academy” and remembering that it was Trump’s alma mater, quickly googled it, only to find it had, like most such schools, gone bankrupt — but had recently been purchased by the Chinese — along with a number of other nearby properties. It was odd, too, that almost all the tourists at West Point itself were Chinese.
We stayed at the Bear Mountain inn, upsetting in its poor management, and while out very early in the morning in the park, came across a platoon of Middle-Eastern men, clearly doing some sort of military training.
We also stopped to visit George Washington’s final headquarters in Newburgh, NY, and were absolutely appalled by the town of Newburgh, “murder capital of New York.”
All in all, we were left with a very strong “What the hell is going on?” feeling.
Aggie:
Good stuff. I had no idea. Thanks for the links.
I keep seeing clickbaity web links warning that Bill Gates is buying up US farmlands, but haven’t checked into it.
Neo, thank you for the interesting info about Frost and his poetry.
Frost’s poem is a reminder that we aren’t the same country we were 60 years ago, or maybe not even a country at all any more. In our desire to be more than just a nation or a people — our desire to be the whole world and to live in a borderless world — we may have become something less than a nation or a people.
It’s not something that can be translated into the usual partisan polemics. Both parties and both sides of the political spectrum have played a part in transforming and weakening the country. I would have hoped that realizing that both Reagan Republicans and their Democrat critics got some things right and some things wrong and combining the things each side got right into a new synthesis would bring the country together, but I guess we are already too divided for that to happen.
There was a “Buffalo Commons” plan for letting nature reclaim the Great Plains. There are fears now that the region’s water supply may be running out, and that the region may be going back to wilderness. It might make more sense to let nature reclaim some of our big cities.
I just wonder, if the Chinese are buying it as farm land, how they expect to export the crops with the current supply chain issues…
NEO:
Mrrr. This happened back in the 1990s, too, with Japan buying American companies and land. The same kind of “Oh, NOES?!?!?”
They had all this paper money they’d gotten due to the trade deficit, what else are they supposed to do with it?
At its peak, however, Japan still owned a lower percentage of our companies than the Dutch did.
In the end, they bought it all at inflated prices, and wound up having to sell almost all of it back at a loss within the next two decades. I believe the only major property that was bought by Japan in this time frame, which they still own, Sony bought Columbia (as in Columbia film studio. As in CBS), and it’s still “Columbia, a Sony pictures corporation”.
This story is possibly a non-story, lacking actual stats on how much they own/have bought in comparison to other groups, including American groups and also other national groups.
This, in fact, may be the actual drive behind corporate land-buying in the last 5-odd years, driving land prices back up. It might not be (one of the alternative explanations) attempting to drive the middle class out of home ownership, but an effort to suck that money back from the Chinese, just as we did it with Japan after their trade deficit gave them lots and lots of US$$ to spend somehow.
OBloody:
I realize people were afraid of Japan back then, but IMHO China is FAR more antagonistic to us than Japan was and I think that more suspicion of China’s motives is justified.
its hegemonic impulses are more clearly expressed in africa, in south and central america, as well as in this country,
My wife and I listened to the audiobook, “Laptop from Hell” this weekend driving back from CA to Tucson. One item among many interesting facts is that China is dominated by “princelings” who are the children and grandchildren of the old communists. These people are buying influence, a lot of influence, with people like the “Black Rock chairman, Larry Fink. Black Rock is very “Woke” and is a big champion of “ESG”, the DIE of corporations. The princelings control trillions of dollars.
I can’t tell if it is just greed or some underlying motive.
“its hegemonic impulses are more clearly expressed in africa, in south and central america, as well as in this country,” – M. Cervantes
Africa, South and Central America are the low hanging fruit. I would suggest they’re making their way through some of Europe as well.
So here’s a reasonable explanation for Bill Gates buying farmland:
____________________________________
Bill Gates is an American technology pioneer. Gates co-founded Microsoft. Gates is a renowned software developer, international philanthropist, noted business magnate, and investor. He is also the fourth richest man on planet Earth with a net worth of $125 billion.
Now, Bill Gates adds “being the largest, private owner of American farmland” to his career achievements.
Along with his wife Melinda Gates, Bill owns over 268,000 acres of farmland diversified in over 19 states. Gate’s private American farmlands are worth an estimated $690 million.
Pessimistic conspiracy theories abound, but Bill Gates, America’s largest farmland owner, is born from non-salacious and pragmatic reasons. Gates is just using farmland to make Agri-Tech and financial investments.
Owning farmland is one of the most prudent financial investments to make now. Farmland as an investment offers low volatility. In addition, corporations and the rich are investing in farmland to deal with climate change and supply products to a hungry world with changing tastes.
New technologies must be developed to give more sustenance to land that we farm to keep it sustainable. Farmlands will only become more automated in the future. The plant-based protein craze will be worth $23.4 billion by 2027.
Agricultural technology advances of the future, or Agri-Tech, will create super productive seeds, sustainable biofuels and super crops.
It seems like Gates is getting ahead of the curve, relative to future Agri-Tech advances profitability, with his farmland investments.
https://landincome.com/blog/why-bill-gates-is-buying-farmland
____________________________________
We’ll see how the “plant-based protein craze” pans out, assuming the climate fascists — including Gates — don’t shut down meat-based protein which is on their agenda.
“I can’t tell if it is just greed or some underlying motive.”
Oh, it’s greed all right(!)
BUT married to that most seductive, “But it’s for the best—for the common good” (a kind of businessperson’s correlative of Reagan’s “thirteen most terrifying words”)
The “chaser” being the “uplifting” motivation that “I had better “do it”, “get it”—steal it?—before someone else does…since…I’m more deserving of it…since…I’m better, cleverer, more capable, more MORAL…than those other gangsters out there…
(The down side of “morality”—so easy to pretend—and that even more potent force: Messianism…?)
IOW, there’s a whole lot of pretty intense rationalization going on there…
(Needless to say, since people like Trump aim to prevent me from getting my JUST DESSERTS, they are EVIL and must be prevented at ALL COSTS…once again, FOR THE GOOD OF ALL!!)
I suppose it’s also a kind of CHALLENGE.
The challenge of the huckster, the poseur, the snake-oil salesman.
The circus carny.
(The Don Juan?)
Some people—with a wide smile (e.g., a Biden sh**-eating grin)—just LOVE challenges like that….
Gives them a purpose.
A reason to wake up in the morning.
Makes their lives meaningful.
Gosh! How many people did I dupe today?! (And it’s a good thing, too—how else are they s’posed to learn anything?)
Should hostilities break put between the US and China, all that land will escheat to Federal control as ‘Assets of Enemy aliens’.
They don’t get their money, or the land, back after the war.
That’s a HUGE loss for China; rubbing slat on the wound, you might say.
The same applies across the Globe; any country that declares war on China can seize all and any Chinese-owned assets, no refunds are allowed.
This should make Australia happier.
(Think of all the properties in central London that will suddenly become HMS’s Government Property!)
This is also possible if things with Russia get to stiff..
I remember the Japanese imperial thinking that had large parts of the American real estate market scooped up by them. I also remember the crash of the Japanese economy that followed, with them largely unable to get their price out of their investment.
American land – whether farmland, residential, or commercial – is rock-bottom cheap, by world’s standards. That is the reason for foreign rushes to ‘buy it up’ at ANY price. They are overpaying; a downturn in the market wipes out any profit.
It’s a little like trying to corner the market on insects. Go ahead and try, you will be beaten by sheer volume.
“China is still a Communist country …”
China is no longer a communist country. They allow private property to be officially recognized. Property rights are not absolute and the government has wide powers to tell property owners how they must use their own property but individuals can generally enjoy the benefits of their own property and their own labour.
China is fascist.
PeteEE:
The quote makes it clear that the Communist Party in China is in complete control. That Communist Party is not the same as that of the old USSR, of course, or the traditional definition. In that sense, they are certainly not Communist. But do you think they don’t know what to call themselves? They still seem to think they are Communists, despite the differences.
The Nazis called themselves socialists, by the way. To this day there are many arguments about whether they were primarily on left or right.
And “fascist” has also morphed into a term that means something more than industry cooperating with and under the control of government.