By Amanda Prestigiacomo
It was revealed this week that a member of the Chinese Communist Party secretly purchased 198,000 acres of U.S. farmland, back in 2015.
Chen Tianqiao, a co-founder of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, made the purchase of Oregon land for $85 million, paying around $430 an acre, according to Land Report magazine, the New York Post reported Saturday.
“In 2015, Tianqiao Chen acquired nearly 200,000 acres of former Crown Pacific timberlands in Oregon from Fidelity National Financial Ventures for $85 million ($430 per acre),” the magazine said. “Chen did so via the investment vehicle Whitefish Cascade Forest Resources LLC. In December 2023, Oregon tax records revealed that the 198,000-acre block was currently owned by Shanda Asset Management LLC.”
According to the Daily Mail, Chen’s purchase does not show up in government records of land ownership by foreign investors.
Back in October, the Department of Agriculture estimated that Chinese entities owned around 400,000 acres of U.S. farmland, which translates to more than $2 billion dollars. Though it’s a fraction of foreign-owned farmland, the number has alarmed lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, since it’s been dramatically increasing over the past decade as China becomes more and more adversarial toward the U.S.
