Chinese gaming billionaire is second largest foreign landowner in the US

Chinese billionaire Chen Tianqia owns  198,000 acres in the US, making him the country's second-largest individual land owner, Bloomberg reports.

The online gaming tycoon's Oregon property places him below only the Irving family of Canada on the list of foreign individuals who own land in the US.

Foreign ownership of American farmlands, mainly Chinese, has concerned US lawmakers since the publication of a 2021 Department of Agriculture report on the subject.

The 2021 controversial purchase of land near an Air Force base in Grand Forks, North Dakota, triggered concern about the use that Chinese corporations can give to their land.

The lawmakers have also questioned the accuracy of the data on foreign landowners. The information only surfaced eight years later, despite Chen Tianqiao buying his land in 2015.

Image: Comms88 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Democrat Senator Jon Tester told NPR that the government doesn't know with certainty how much land is "owned by Chinese individuals or folks controlled by the Chinese government."

Lawmakers' concern was that the Department of Agriculture has weak oversight of foreign-owned land, as the only way of registering it is through a self-filled form that buyers provide.

Therefore, the Senate voted in July 2023 to ban the sale of farmland beyond a specific size or value to people or companies from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. It was not signed into law.

The episode was another dent in the relations between the two countries, which have been delicate for years. Biden worked to improve them throughout 2023.

According to the 2021 data, China owns around 384,000 acres of land in America. However, the number is much less significant than the lawmaker's response makes it seem.

Aside from the land owned by individuals like Chen Tianqiao, according to data the Department of Agriculture provided to NPR, 80% of the acres belong to three organizations.

Smithfield Foods is the United States' largest pork processor, NPR explained. The formerly American meatpacker was bought by a Chinese company in 2013. They own more than a third of the acres.

The billionaire, Sun Guangxin, owns two companies in Texas called Brazos Highland Properties and Harvest Texas. The enterprises hold 100.000 acres in the southern state, according to NPR.

Finally, the third largest owner of Chinese land in the US is a real estate management firm called Walton International Group in Arizona. It owns about 8% of the land. 

Despite being a significant number, 384.000 acres places China in 18th place among foreign landowners in the US. According to Forbes data, it would need to nearly double the land to reach Ireland in tenth place with 760,000 acres.

No government owns land directly in the United States. The data refers to the nation's companies or individuals when speaking of a country. The top foreign landowners in the US are Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK, and Germany. 

China is, in fact, very far from the top spot held by Canadian companies, who own more than 12 million acres of US farmland, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Even with Canada's 12 million acres, foreign-owned farmland (40 million acres) only represents over 3% of privately held agricultural land in the US.