Why politicians are obsessed with mythical Chinese land grabs

There was a time when Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, had no problem with Chinese investment. In 2012, when she was the state’s lieutenant governor, she met Xi Jinping, then China’s vice-premier, on a visit to Beijing. In 2017, as governor, she visited again, this time posing with Vice-Premier Wang Yang. No longer. In her Condition of the State address to Iowa’s legislature on January 9th, Ms Reynolds claimed that “China continues to grow more aggressive, and buying American land has been one of the many ways they have waged this new battle.” Later this year she intends to introduce a new law that would toughen land-ownership reporting rules in Iowa. “American farmland should stay in American hands,” she says.

Ms Reynolds joins a chorus of state and federal politicians who worry about Chinese land grabs. On January 2nd Missouri’s governor, Mike Parson, issued an executive order banning “foreign adversaries” from buying land within ten miles of a military facility. Last October Arkansas ordered a Chinese-owned agricultural firm to sell 160 acres of land. Laws to restrict Chinese ownership of land have spread to Florida and Texas. In recent years the number of states with restrictions on foreign ownership has grown from 14 to 24, according to Micah Brown, of the National Agricultural Law Centre in Arkansas. Federal politicians are getting in on the act, too. Jon Tester, the Democratic senator from Montana, is among those to have proposed tighter federal laws on foreign land ownership.