In the past couple of months, lawmakers — mostly Republicans but some Democrats as well — in more than two dozen US states have passed or considered legislation restricting Chinese purchases of farmland, citing concerns about food security and the need to protect nearby military bases and other sensitive installations.

The move sparked concerns among some experts on US-China relations, including those who see echoes of past discriminatory laws in the United States, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Last week, the US Senate joined those states. It voted 91-7 for a measure to block businesses based in or working as agents of China, as well as Russia, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, from purchasing a controlling interest in US farmland or other agribusiness over national security concerns.

The proposed measure, passed as an amendment to the annual defense budget bill, would require the president to review farmland transactions from those four countries, and block any deals that would give a foreign entity from any of the countries "control" of US farmland and waive those that do not

The proposed measure, passed as an amendment to the annual defense budget bill, would require the president to review farmland transactions from those four countries, and block any deals that would give a foreign entity from any of the countries "control" of US farmland and waive those that do not.

It would also give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States the power to evaluate land deals, using data from the Department of Agriculture, and to block those deals if it sees fit.

The Senate also went one step further in targeting China.

It approved a second measure, 91 to 6, that would require US citizens to notify the Treasury Department within 14 days of making any investments in the national security industries of China and those three countries, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors and hypersonic production.

The US currently restricts exports of certain advanced technologies to China, but it does not prohibit partnerships that help fund the development of those technologies within China.

Both measures come as the Joe Biden administration has for many months been working on an executive order that forces venture capital and private equity companies making investments in China to share more information with the government, as well as to prohibit investments outright in a few key sectors that could be crucial to military prowess, such as quantum computing and AI.

The two measures were included as an amendment to the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act, the must-pass bill that determines defense spending and policy. To become law, it would still need to pass the House, which narrowly signed off on its own version of the annual defense bill last month after intense debates.

The measure banning Chinese from purchasing US farmland was co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of eight Republicans and two Democrats, with the "no "votes coming from five Democrats and two Republicans.

"This is a critical step toward making sure we aren't handing over valuable American assets to foreign entities who want to replace us as the world's leading military and economic power," said Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana and co-author of the farmland measure.

"As a third-generation farmer, I know that food security is national security," Tester said, adding that investment from "foreign adversaries" in US agriculture threatens US businesses and "puts our food security and national security at risk".

However, a 2021 analysis by the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies found that foreign purchases of US agricultural land are not a major threat to US food security.

According to the Department of Agriculture, or USDA, foreign ownership of US land has almost doubled in the past 10 years. The latest USDA report with data through the end of 2021 found Canadian investors owned 31 percent, or 5.18 million hectares, and China has less than 1 percent of foreign-owned land at just over 153,780 hectares total.

A large portion of China's ownership came from a single purchase in 2013, when the Chinese company WH Group bought Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the US.

States have previously sought to limit foreign investment, said Micah Brown, a staff attorney at the National Agriculture Law Center. What's new, Brown said, is that some lawmakers are taking aim at specific countries and their governments.

"2023 is really swinging for the fences here, with a majority of states having some kind of proposal, at least one proposal," Brown told CNN.

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Last year, in a House Appropriations Committee hearing, New York Democratic Representative Grace Meng criticized an attempt to pass an amendment to ban companies owned wholly or in part by the Chinese government from purchasing US farmland. Singling out China would "perpetuate already rising anti-Asian hate", she said.

Rooted in racism

Nancy Qian, a professor of economics at Northwestern University in Illinois, told CNN: "I think there's a good reason to want to keep control of strategic interests in one's own country. But these bills about farmland, these bills about just property in general, to me, it's transparent that they're rooted in racism and xenophobia again because we've seen this before. It really isn't the first time."

Yan Bennett, assistant director of the Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China at Princeton University, told CNN: "When national security is threatened, yes, we need to take action. But not every land purchase by a foreign government or a foreign national is a national security threat, so we need to make sure that we distinguish those purchases from those that are actual threats."

Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, told CNN that an atmosphere of racism and anti-China sentiment threatens other US interests as well, such as possibly deterring Chinese students from wanting to come to the US and obtain advanced degrees.

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"If we're not careful that we are telling the world's biggest talent pool that they're an unwelcomed class or a reviled class here in the United States and that will also have implications for Chinese Americans," Daly told CNN in February.

Contact the writer at aiheping@chinadailyusa.com