[inaudible conversations]

congressman glenn thompson of pennsylvania chairs the house agriculture committee. >> the committee comes to order and thank you for joining the meeting, the dangers china

imposes to the department of agriculture. after brief opening remarks we'll hear from witnesses and the hearing then will be open to questions. traditionally we don't do questions with panels of our colleagues. i know the governor was interested in taking a few questions. timewise, i'm not sure we'll be able to do a full five-minute round with the governor. and the second panel will be five minutes questions as normal. so good morning and thanks to all for being here for a timely and necessary conversation about threats china poses to american agriculture. the people's republic of china, governed by the chinese communist party, which is where the strike comes from, it doesn't come from individuals. this is imposed basically where we're looking at, lynx to the chinese communist party, has

gone out of its way to reduce reliance on american agriculture all while aggressively pursuing tactics that threaten our nation's ability to feed itself. these threats are multifaceted and a strategic and incendiary and require coordinated and proactive response. that's last few years have seen them gather up farmland at an active rate. china's long use of legal and regulatory system to steal intellectual property and we've seen it from semi conductors to seeds and not to mention the scale and sophistication by which china can manipulate critical infrastructure has exposed cut fastballs in american technologies. this interference has ranged from data breaches to theft of

agriculture research to ramping up disruptions of irrigation and transportation systems. in 2022, chairman comer and i with more than 125 of our republican colleagues asked the government accountability office to evaluate foreign investments to u.s. farmland and its impact on national security, trade and food security. as many of you know, in 2021, the department of agriculture estimated foreign investments in u.s. agriculture land grew to nearly 40 million acres. a few months ago we received a final report which showed congress where gaps exist in our reporting framework and how better more timely coordination between federal agencies could help increase visibility into potential national security risks related to foreign investment. congress took a natural first step with the recent passage of the consolidated appropriations act where the bill addressed foreign ownership of land by improving the tracking system of it.

the fact china imports as much food as the u.s. exports to the whole world makes this conversation more difficult. in recent years, the u.s. has seen record export values to china for soybeans, corn, beef, chicken meat, and sorghum which are contributors which explore market diversity elsewhere. how do we strike a balance protecting our producers and consumers and every piece of agriculture value chain while keeping pace with china's needs? how do we reduce our reliance on one country without? mining the necessity of a strong export market? how do we think smartly about policies that mitt great threats while protecting our best assets?

today's witnesses come to the table with experience with china. i look forward to a discussion. with that i now would like to welcome the distinguished ranking member, mr. scott, for opening remarks he'd like to make. mr. scott: thank you, chairman. ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the influence that china has on american agriculture p. but unfortunately, some of the rhetoric surrounding this topic may derail us from tackling the real issues at hand and may contribute, hopefully not, but may contribute to violence against asian americans. i want all americans to know that we on the agriculture committee condemn all bigotry including race, motivated

threats, and acts of violence. this is about agriculture policy, not people policy. i himself want us to keep in mind that china is an important trading partner to the united states, and we need a thorough and policy heavy conversation so that we can help the american farmers and our agriculture assistants navigate this challenging and somewhat thorny issue. and i hope everyone here today will engage in a serious, fact-minded, fact-based conversation and avoid fear mongering and alarmism. though i'm told that this isn't the topic of this hearing, i am also pleased that the recently

enacted agriculture appropriations bill will help usda update its outdated system of tracking foreign agriculture landownership in the united states of america. if year going to have a serious discussion, we must know china is our largest trade partner, accounting for $37. billion in u.s. agriculture exports just last fiscal year alone. american farmers are the most efficient and productive, and because of this, we produce far more than we americans can consume. my colleagues will often note we

are in an agricultural trade deficit right now. and i'm here to tell you that alienating our trade partners will only deepen that deficit. american farmers need large markets to export their products p. and when those markets are lost, who does it harm? our farmers. and then the american people. we saw the implications of this when the trump administration started a trade war with china creating chaos and undermining markets for our american farmers and such a trade war shut american farmers out of china. guess what? brazilian farmers have filled that gap, increasing their exports to china as our market

share decreased. now trump is calling for a 60% tariff on all chinese goods. this would have drastic impacts on american agriculture production. it would increase costs for consumers and would almost certainly lead to devastating retaliatory tariffs placed on the u.s. agriculture exports. so i think it's fair to think that the u.s. being so dependent on a single export market who is also a strategic congressional pet tore raises and poses a risk for our american farmers. and one way that we can address this concern is to expand trade in existing markets while we open new markets.

and i continue to support increasing the market access program. that's the way to go. and foreign market development program in the farm bill. and i believe that the new trade deal is critical for our american agriculture. however, there are many places where i am very critical of the chinese government and other agriculture technology is highly concerning to me. and continues to be a problem. marked desertion through domestic price support programs and ignoring w.t.o. decisions hinders access and creates an uneven playing field for u.s. farmers. and i also remain highly

critical of any foreign government seeking to buy american land near essential intelligence or our military installations p. this is now a major national security. we must protect our national security interests. this is a national security issue of soaring magnitude to this nation. we've got to protect our farmland and not get it in the hands of foreign interests. particularly china. i look forward to hearing from our witness chairman today and coming out of this hearing with an improved understanding of our relationship with china and how we can work together to protect america's agriculture interests.

thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. the chair would request other members to submit their opening statements for the record. the witnesses may begin testimony so ensure there's ample time for questions. please welcome mr. dusty johnson to introduce our first witness. >> governing the nation should be a team sport but unfortunately there are a lot of free agents in politics and people don't understand the value of shared vision and efforts. luckily our speaker this morning my friend, my governor, knows how to work together. i don't think there's a month that goes by she doesn't show the leadership necessary to have her teamwork with our team whether it is protecting farmland from the chinese communist party and getting

tiktok off government devices and making sure her state pension program has the flexibility to divest from c.c.p. influences and making sure the farm bill priorities are right, managing the black hills national forenest a appropriate way, protecting mount rushmore. i could go on for an hour, sir. and i know you don't want me to, of the ways our speaker and i have been able to work together. so i just got to tell you, i'm honored to be able to have a real south dakotan, a real leader and a real partner come on back to the ag committee and share some wisdom with us. mr. chairman, the governor of the great state of south dakota, kristi noem. mr. thompson: i thank the governor and welcome ms. noem. mr. mike gallagher, the chairman of the select committee on the chinese government party. congressman, thanks for joining us.

hopefully our third witness today, and i know he has scheduling conflicts initially here but hoping he'll be able to join us in time to offer his perspective, another respected colleague of mine, of ours, someone i work with on many issues including career and technical education, the gentleman from illinois, who is the ranking member of the select committee on the chinese communist party. thank you all witnesses for joining us. we'll now proceed to your testimony. you'll each have five minutes. the timer is in front of you. countdown to zero when your time is expired. governor noem, please begin when ready. governor noem: thank you. it's an honor to be with you and thank you, congressman, for that kind introduction. you're a wonderful friend and doing such a great job maybe because you stole half my staff and kept them when i left the hill. but you're a wonderful representative for south dakota. thank for you caring so passionately for all our people.

chairman thompson, i have the honor of having one of my former chair men on this committee sit before me, chairman lucas and was my chairman when i served in the house of representatives and had a chance to do two farm bills but serving under his leadership was a special honor and i love being a member of his team as we put together farm policy as i referred to as food policy for the united states of america. it's wonderful to see you again, chairman lucas, and i look forward to receiving your advice and wisdom over the years. langing member scott and members of the committee, thank so you much for letting me be here today to discuss this topic. as a former member of this committee, i know it very well. each day you protect not only our nation's food supply but you are stewards of our land and it's a treasure to do that each and every day. i come before you today and sit as the 33rd governor of south dakota. my home state is known for its gorgeous black hills and rolling plains but the iconic mount rushmore and we have a lot to be proud of. and if you haven't come to visit

us, you probably should. agriculture is the number one industry but tourism is our second largest industry. it's important to our people our land stays in good shape and continue to produce. this year is special to me because this is the 30th year i've worked on agriculture policy. i spent my lifetime working on policy, not just being a farmer and rancher and raising my family on the land but also being involved in meetings. at just the age of 22 my dad was killed in an accident on our family farm and i got angry when i found out how our family was going to be hit tragically by the death tax and started showing up at meetings to talk about policy and how it impacted small farms. at that time the u.s. senate majority leader was tom daschle, a democrat and he appointed me to serve on the farm agency state committee which is the industry that oversees all the farm programs in the state of south dakota. i did that many years as a young wife and mother and also as a

farmer and rancher running a large operation in our state. i was heavily involved in the implementation of federal programs in our state making sure they worked for all our ranchers there and that they were as flexible as possible to give them the freedom to choose how they ran their farms and to do it very well. i served on many different commissions and task forces in washington, d.c. during those years to help disadvantaged farmers, people that were in tough situations in different critical situations and as a general manager of our business operations, i ran our farm for many decades. i first was elected to our state legislature in 2006 and became the assistant majority leader in the house p. while there i rewrote our property tax system and ended up running for congress and was elected and served on this committee and we worked on two farm bills while i served on this committee and served on natural resources, on the armed services committee, education and work force committee and ended on ways and means committee when we did tax reform and was very proud to see that signed into law. in 2018 when i ran for governor

in our state, i won and then was re-elected again last year or in 2022 and i am in my second term now. i tell you all of this because i think it's important for you to know that my heart is with the land and it is with our people, but when it comes to policy, that i know what i'm talking about. and i know it because i live it. today i focus of this committee is the danger china poses to american agriculture. over the years, i have witnessed this hostile communist country work to systematically work to take over our food supply chain and decades ago started buying our fertilizer companies, patrolling our ability to access fertilizer and bring it in the united states and then i watched them buy up our chemical companies as i worked on implementation of policies and programs at the state level and federal level. i watched as we sold citizenship to chinese communist members of the communist party for investment into our processing systems and now most of our

processing facilities are owned by the communist party or chinese government. now they are coming for our land. and when they buy up our land they will complete their chain of control of our food supply. between 2010 and 2020 the chinese communist parties holding of ag land increased by 5,300%. reports show china owns 384,000 acres of u.s. ag land valued at over $2 billion. this should be alarming to all of us. usda admits this may not even account for all the land they own because there's very little track of foreign interests involved in these large transactions. in fact, there's very little reporting that happens at the state or federal level and little consequences for allowing countries who hate us from owning our land. just this past summer, we had members of the communist party contact our state government and want to come and visit two of our processing facilities and

see our farms and visit south dakota. we declined all of those meetings. but just within days we received a phone call from the state department telling us that those were chinese spies. they were there to steal our intellectual property and steal our genetics and wanted to debrief us if we met with them. thank god we did not. we were told they were there to help improve our trade relations, that they were there to improve our business and exports and instead they were there to steal from the united states of america. so the threat is very real to us every single day what china is doing and they have a thousands year plan to become the world dominating power in the world and the only thing standing in their way is america. just this past summer it was clear when those chinese spies were in our state that china wants to control us and they want to do that by controlling our food supply. the chinese communist party is not our friend. they're not our partner or ally but our enemy and a rapidly

expanding security threat that can't be ignored. let me be clear, they're buying up our entire food supply chain and when america can't feed itself and rely on other members of another country to feed us, it becomes a national security issue. the country that feeds us will control us. and let me remind you why we do a farm bill every year. i'm well aware that you have a priority to get that done and i'm looking forward to getting a farm bill done because that's a safety net for our farmers out there. in the past the farm bill has always been a bipartisan issue and should continue to be a bipartisan issue. i had the opportunity to work on two of them and it's simply a safety net for our farmers. it's important and america decided years ago we needed to have a farm bill to ensure every family in this country had a safe and had an affordable food supply, that they had the ability to go to the grocery store and put food on the table for their families. if a farm her a good year he could pay his bills but if he

had a bad year key lose everything. we didn't want to have a drought or a flood or something that happened that caused us to lose all our small family farms and allow us to lose the ability to feed ourselves. every family in this country recognizes the importance after farm bill and i know you do, too and look forward to getting one completed so we continue to feed ourselves in this country. the farm bill should be designed to help farmers and not environmental tremendousists. i hope you'll continue to focus on making sure we are working as a conservationist myself. i'm committed to protecting the abundance of our natural resources in our state but so-called climate smart agriculture dictated by the biden administration does not help farmers and does not help us put food on the table or conserve our natural resources. we want wildlife habitat solutions that meet the needs of people and the state to best serve our country and our ability to feed ourselves and protect ourselves. the farm bill manages risk and it's a safety net and i hope you can get that done. recent media reports show the

largest chinese holder of american ag land is shipping food and medical supplies to china to be stockpiled by the chinese military. we saw when china purchased land in north dakota they claimed was for a corn processing plant and there wasn't going to be enough corn to supply the plant and was miles from a military installation. they were purchasing that land on purpose for national security reasons and why i've made it a priority in my state to make sure that doesn't happen on my watch. in south dakota we worked for two years to make sure we had a bill in place to make sure we know who is buying our land and it wasn't going to be from a country that hated us. china would never allow us to go to their country and buy land in their country. they don't even allow their own people to buy their land. there's no reason we should allow them to come into our country and buy our land and especially not close to our military installations. south dakota is home to els worth air force base and the b-1 bomber that protected this country for the last 50 years and also home to the mq-9 reaper

drones in operation protecting us as well but would be the first home of the b-21's which will be the bombing platform to protect this country for the next 50 years. it's incredibly important we stop china and make sure other evil foreign governments don't come in and have the opportunity to buy up land next to these military installations. when we talk about food policy, please talk about it from a national security standpoint. it's important we grow our own food and produce it here and do it in a way that protects the united states of america. and with that i yield back. mr. thompson: thank you, governor. now we'll recognize chairman gallagher. begin when ready. mr. gallagher: thank you to members of the committee and what an incredible opportunity to discuss the threat imposed by china and american agriculture in particular. i want to thank the governor with her leadership for sharing the alarm about the threat and carrying the burden dealing with dusty johnson before he leaves.

he may not technically weigh that much but that's a heavy burden. and i believe he's from your dakota. i get it confused p. a year ago, a gentleman named shang hitao pled guilty to committing american espionage and sent to two years in prison for stealing intellectual property from a monsanto subsidiary and took copies of the algorithm back to china where he worked for china's institute of soil science. here you have an example of someone stealing american technology and bringing it directly back to the chinese communist party which reflects the c.c.p.'s approach to agriculture and food security in that it's not just about economic competition. to quote the general secretary

himself, it's large importance. and they import corn, soybeans, wheat, rice. the c.c.p. views food security as an existential responsibility. if they invade taiwan it would be subject to sanctions and therefore the c.c.p. would face challenges in feeting -- feeding its population. to put bluntly they're engaged in warfare against the united states and our agriculture sector is already a prime target. the governor mentioned the share of u.s. farmland owned by chinese linked firms increasing more than five fold between 2010 and 2021. these are only the acquisitions we know about. there could be much more because as you all know, the federal oversight system for reporting foreign ownership is alarmingly lax and enforcement is very minimal. for example, the governor referenced the fufang group which sought to purchase land

near the other air force base in 2021 and did not report to the usda until the u.s. media started asking questions about it. that's unacceptable. if you look broadly at the insidious project, three problems emerged. the u.s. government has no way to track farm purchase by other adversaries and they are not capable of searching. and second, upon discovering a problematic transaction, they find they have no jurisdiction despite the fact in the frma bill we tried to give them acquisition. and because the air force base in question was not listed as a sensitive site, sipius claimed they have no authority to review the transaction and that's unacceptable. and sippous can't view greenfield farmland and view it as a factor. our foreign adversaries are able

to purchase thousands of acres and they can't consider the impact on our food supply. this strikes me as something democrats and republican coos come together right now in this congress and solve by passing something like the protecting u.s. farmland and sensitive sites from foreign adversaries act. i know there are members of this committee on both sides of the aisle, ms. plot kin and i worked very productively on this issue and something we can get done even in divided government, give sippous the resources it needs to make sure our foremost adversary can't buy land near critical infrastructure and u.s. military bases. it should be a no-brainer and i suggest we do better by letting our agricultural i.p. by passing bills. this would ensure u.s. taxpayer dollars don't go to c.c.p. backed firms like beijing genomics institute that wants to collect genomes from plants and animals. and we should protect us by

cataloging u.s. plants and animals we need to keep american families fed. in closing, i would say i spent a lot of my time as chairman of the select committee on china asking why any of this matters and why you have this hearing and why we're concerned about the threat posed by the communist party. it's not that they're just stealing our intellectual property and trying to dominate our food supply, i really do thinking and don't think it's alarmism but a recognition of reality and if you read what the leader is saying to his party and its people, i believe the c.c.p. is preparing for a war with the united states. there's no doubt they would prefer the fruits of war without the actual costs. that is to be sure. but they are preparing nonetheless. and he's told us repeatedly that he is prepared to use force if necessary to achieve his lifelong ambition which is of course taking taiwan and therefore dominating the region and ultimately displacing the

united states as the most powerful country in the world. so if we want to avoid that outcome which would be a terrible outcome, a war with china would be horrific if you've ever participated in a war game. there are many on the committee that serve and understand the cost of war. we have to abide by the old adage, if we want peace we must prepare for war. that's the challenge, to mobilize our colleagues and our constituents to do difficult costly but important things that put us on a path to deterring war. thank for having this important hearing and for letting me go a little longer. mr. thompson: thanks so much and thanks for your leadership and testimony. i know you have a hearing to get to. so feel free. mr. gallagher: i can imagine what rog would say if we were here. we've spent so much time together. mr. thompson: c-span is conducting the hearing and you'll hear him time delayed.

we'll take an opportunity while our next witness is on his way at another hearing and we'll take two questions from each i'd of the die as here for the governor who has been more than generous with her time and so first i would recognize mr. lucas from oklahoma thank you, mr. chairman. we both agree that a strong healthy rural america and rural america is the key to our national security. memories are short. and i would like to go back 10 years ago when you and i worked together 2 1/2 year struggle to create the third generation farm bill and maybe memories have numbed with time but not the way you conducted in this committee on behalf of your constituents

but in those republican committee meetings where we, together, battled diligently to get the attention of elected leadership about the importance of these farm bills. i will be forever eternally grateful you backing me up the way you handled the speaker and floor leader on behalf of rural america and production agriculture. so thank you for that tenacity, which i suspect has grown stronger in time as your role. >> understand that what you all say matters and what you do matters, the words you use have consequences and matters in leadership. i have gone in times at at my different roles that leadership needs to sit and listen and have conversations. we have been addicted by being

offended by each other and we love to be offended and i would just ask that we start listening to each other. the farm bill should be bipartisan and put a safety net out there and do it for the consideration of our food policy. if we think the pandemic scary, what would happen if we can't feed our people. we are three meals away. as governor and c.e.o. how much control china has over not just manipulating our currency and even my -- i can't get vanguard to say china isn't an emerging market. they should give me to invest and i don't want to do that. when i look at our food supply system and recognize china is not our ally, we do trade with

them. and i worked on trade agreements when i served on the ways and means committee, i noticed when we trade agreements we had friendlier neighborhoods. that farm bill and i picked fights with my own fellow republicans, we got them done and we have to come back to the table to feed our tables. mr. lucas: thank you for your tenacity and i yield back. mr. thompson: i recognize the ranking member. >> how are you? good to have you with us. but tell me this, what is your opinion of trump's proposal for a 60% tariff on all chinese imports? and are your farmers ready face the potential consequences of

this? noem noem that is a great conversation for you to continue to have as well with the republican members to weigh in and make sure we get the policy in place. what you do in this committee is people policy and about feeding policy and take care of needy folks. it is about making sure we have many farmers out on our land and we have that safety net. you have an incredible opportunity that is not happening anywhere else on capitol hill. i hope you catch that vision. nobody cared that much about a little state called south

dakota. we get one member of the house. when i came here, i didn't get a delegation. i became friends with everybody, republicans and democrats because if i wanted to get stuff done. we were the first state to ban tiktok and after that, they banned it. >> i have one more question for you in that short time. if you listened to my opening statement, i hope you understand how concerned i am about foreign governments coming in and buying up our land, especially our farmland. makes the agriculture committee the most powerful committee.

you can do without a lot of things but the one thing we cannot do without is food. and i'm concerned about the china impact especially and buying up this farmland. and when you correlate with the number of immigrants coming into in country from china, that's a long way to walk and get to mexico or south america to get in those trips where they are coming across our border. i got to wonder about that and i want to ask you how much land in south dakota have gone to foreign interests? and i want you to know that i agree with you, this is a

national security of high monumental interests. and we got to get to the bottom of it. how is your state reacting to the buying up of land by foreign governments, particularly china in your state? gov. noem: that was the question when i became governor and we had a law that prevented evil governments buying our land but there was no reporting mechanism or no consequences and we didn't know who owned our land or investment and nobody was reporting it and if we did find someone was purchasing land such as north korea, iran, russia, china, venezuela, cuba. and there are no consequences. last year i brought a bill that would allowed to create a board

at the state level. that's what i wanted to have in place and reviewed those transactions and put forward consequences to make sure it was done closer to the people and had more accountability and looking at real estate transactions. that bill did not pass and what we ended up passing we added reporting mechanisms to the law we already had with consequences. i know when we have a bill on the books, we need to know to get the answer. mr. scott: but there are foreign interests buying land in south dakota? gov. noem: there are countries that are buying land that are friendly to the united states. some of our big processing facilitiesr smithfield farms is

chinese owned and they are difficult for me to work with. mr. scott: thank you for having this hearing, i truly believe that food is now a national security issue. mr. thompson: i have two additional questions and then get testimony from my good friend from illinois, my son and daughter-in-law's congressman, mr. krishnamoorthi in a mooter think. and austin scott and congresswoman slotkin. mr. scott: i'm going to get technical in this, the reason it is so important for us to be aggressive with china on the ag issue is that this is a basic necessity. we aren't talking about toys but the chemicals it takes for our food supply and the technology

in our seed supply. and u.s. companies less than 10 years ago where 80% of the seed apply and today, 30% of the global seed supply. when you allow countries like china through companies like one of the largest seed suppliers in the world and largest chemical supplier in the world i might add, then you are putting one of your basic daily needs at risk, which is your food supply. and i want to commend you for being aggressive with that. it is way past time to be aggressive with china. they are not an economic competitor anymore. they are an adversary and we have acknowledged that. and if tariffs are what it takes

to bring manufacturing back not just to the united states and to the western hemisphere that is part of what it's going to take to have self control over our basic necessities. you were here during the last farm bill, one of the big discussions that we have asked for help for and not been able to get it from many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is an increase in prices. as you talk to your farmers and producers, can you tell me what you are hearing from them about the increased in input costs and reference prices so they have a safety net. gov. noem: if you don't address it and don't bring them up to where they should be, there is no safety net. and making sure you are making adjustments in the part of a farm bill, that's one of the most important things you can do to manage risk. what farmers do everywhere and

those who aren't farmers, they go to a bank and go to buy land or a tractor and corn planter and get an operating note and buy seed, and chemicals. and maybe it will rain and something will grow and go back and harvest enough to pay their bills. some of the biggest gamblers in the world because they bury millions of dollars in the dirt because they believe producing is a need that america needs to have and give them a safety net. because it's not just the fact they operate -- that's why they could have one year in the drought and lose their entire operation because of the risk they take. increasing those reference prices is critical to give them a safety net that works and functions to get them -- that's why i talked about the farm bill

as our national food policy. we decided as a country it was important that we always feed ourselves and don't depend on another country to feed us. it does us good to have a food supply. there are a lot of farmers out here and safe and affordable one because we have a farm bill and safety net program that they can stay on the land. secretary austin: i appreciate you and the governor you have been. secretary austin: --

ms. slotkin: food security is national security. i'm a former c.i.a. officer and two of us are on the committee and that's my entire lens. we should be able to feed ourselves by ourselves. during covid, my family is in the hot dog business and we were concerned with the meat processing plants that americans don't know what it's like to see no protein on the shelves and the panic that would create and the concern that would create and i live on my family farm. just to pick up on a thread that representative gallagher mentioned, this idea of having farmland purchases go through the cfius process. and again, i see it as a federal

issue and based on your example, the intelligence community, the full weight of ash -- our insider information on a company, individuals, on their intentions does reside on the federal government. i respect your attempt to do it at the state level but you were about to meet with businessmen, that resides at the federal government level. there are a bunch of bipartisan bills on putting all purchases of farmland just not farmland adjacent to a military base but all farmland to go through that cfius process and let our intelligence community tell us if this was a risk or not. myself and representative blake moore went a step further and we said it's not just farmland and you have a company building a

big manufacturing site, a company coming in to do a huge purchase of our infrastructure, you should be putting that through that same intelligence community process to help us understand if that is a strategic threat to us and we are trying to solve the same problem which is how do we make sure that nations that could be real adversaries are not able to purchase major infrastructure and assets in the united states? we have to make distinction and can't hit it with a giant club. biggest purchasers of farmland in michigan is candidate -- canada. i used to go there when drinking age was 19 and i'm not concerned. it has been limited but i do think it's bipartisan cooperation. we have to do that without

deemizing people from china who are living under this government that i bet they don't like. we want the best and brightest from china to be students as opposed to take information back to china. that's my one ask have a policy conversation and do it on a bipartisan basis. we have the will here but in the process not demonize all human beings with a giant brush where leaders set the tone. but i agree with you on many, many things on this and ask you to take it one step from farmland to the big infrastructure that we know they are interested in. gov. noem: we had a lot of conversations about in south dakota. the next question is what about commercial property.

it's not they haven't been conducting nepharious activities and where does it stop. we should be annualizing it. i proposed the cfius model at the state level. i get the privilege and opportunity to be focused on south dakota and i know what is going on there better than someone else who lives across the country. no offense to the federal government very rare that you fix anything. and when we are doing something, i am doing it in south dakota and you are taking that as a model and the constitution gives us states' rights to lead than what it grants to the federal government. by giving us the opportunity for me to fight for my people it gives other chances and the federal government. i would use tiktok. by banning tiktok, dozens of

states followed our lead and federal government came in and recognized the threat that tiktok was and collecting data and spying and study the american people and how to steal our information. you know, let the states be incubators what the constitution intended us to be and the federal government can move forward and do things right. i am much more nimble than the federal government is. mr. thompson: i thank the governor. thank you so much for taking the time and expense and spend some time with us and your leadership on this issue. much appreciated. at this point. you are excused. and i'm going to recognize my good friend from illinois who is the vice chair or the ranking member of the select committee

on china, mr. krishnamoorthi in a mootery -- krish in a mooter think.

rrl case of theft was estimated to be $30 million because the folks in china wanted to reverse engineer the contents of this to be able to produce the same. ag technology is a prime target of i.p. theft because this is the best and most productive in the world. the select committee's bipartisan economic report released in december last year included broad recommendations on how to best protect i.p. for the ag sector, we need to improve coordination between local and federal law enforcement agencies and properly resource and trend the d.o.a. to prosecute these crimes. there are other concerns addressed in our economic report. congresswoman slotkin and congresswoman henson have

transformed another recommendation into the securing american ag act which would require the ag and where china has been increasingly dominating the market and crowding american and other suppliers. as we continue to remain in an area of uncertainty in our trade relationship with china, we need to better protect farmers with retaliation by the c.c.p. including by diversifying ag export markets for american farmers. now i know this committee has been looking at the issue of land sales. there are concerns by c.c.p. affiliated entities especially close to sensitive and military sites. as we address these problems, we have to make sure the cure is not worse than the disease.

some solutions had real and harmful effects on the asian-american community as well. dozens of bills target chinese nationals whether they are affiliated with the c.c.p. and land acquisition to sensitive sites. florida, for example, passed s.b.264 that prohibits chinese nationals from purchasing real property in the state. this law had a serious negative impact on the asian-american. ming zoo, a political aseal yes who was persecuted by the c.c.p. and fled to the united states and beginning to rebuild his life in florida. since the passage of s.b., he was forced to cancel the purchase what was going to be

his new home. the lesson here is very clear. when land purchase bills target individuals who are chinese immigrants, they often target those outside of the intended outside. the asian-american legal defense found a lawsuit on equal protection grounds. laws like s.b.264 are not justified. in the earlier 20th century, states passed similar land laws prohibiting chinese and japanese immigrants from becoming land owners. those policies restricted economic opportunities and exacerbated discrimination in every single one of those laws were repealed one by one by one. so, please, as you consider these land purchase laws, let's be careful. you folks don't want to pursue

policies that discriminate against anybody. in that spirit let's be careful not to adopt or encourage those types of policies. thank you again for this very special opportunity to testify before this very distinguished committee. the select committee looks forward to working with your committee in the future and i thank you again. mr. thompson: thank you for joining us and your leadership. much appreciated. we are going to take a brief break no more than five minutes. recess. allow our first panel of