(Zero Hedge)—Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass is once again sounding the alarm over Chinese ownership of land across the United States, calling it one of the Chinese Communist Party’s “insane battlefield asymmetries.”
Bass, founder of Hayman Capital Management, made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with Chris Powers on The Fort podcast.
“We afford them what I call battlefield asymmetries that we should not afford to them,” Bass told Powers. “It doesn’t matter who you are in China; you can come to the U.S., you can buy 10,000 acres of farmland in Iowa, you can buy farmland in Texas, or you can buy 100,000 acres of land between our most active airbase and the border, which happened here in Texas. You can’t believe that these things are happening.”
.@Jkylebass to @fortworthchris: China Has ‘Insane Battlefield Asymmetry’ in U.S. Land Ownership
“We afford them what I call battlefield asymmetries that we should not afford to them. It doesn’t matter who you are in China; you can come to the U.S., you can buy 10,000 acres of… pic.twitter.com/PoCf3m1Iyt
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) February 24, 2025
Bass, who is also the founder of Conservation Equity Management, a Texas-based private equity firm focused on environmental sustainability, highlighted the stark contrast between U.S. policies and China’s restrictions on foreign land ownership, emphasizing the lack of reciprocity between the two superpowers.
“If you and I want to go buy land in China, do you know how successful we’d be? Zero—we would not; they wouldn’t, they don’t allow it. Reciprocity is really important; every single one of our internet search engines and social media companies is banned in China, and yet when TikTok gets banned here, or actually just got an order to be forcibly sold to an American company, they lose their mind,” the investor said.
Bass further criticized how China exploits the openness of American society while maintaining a tightly controlled system at home.
“When every single one of ours is banned over there, they manipulate everything that we do, and we are an open society; they are a closed society,” Bass explained. “They navigate, manipulate every single crack and crevice in our openness to take advantage of us.”
Bass also addressed how China counters U.S. efforts to regulate land purchases by framing opposition as on so-called discrimination:
“When you ask about them buying land, it’s absolutely insane that they can buy land in size over here, and then what they do when you start being more vociferous, or you even start to draft legislation to prevent it – they get like local real estate agents that are Chinese, Chinese Americans, or naturalized Chinese citizens, and they say, ‘You are just a racist; how can you tell a Chinese family in America that’s become Americans they can’t buy a house?’ They create false equivalencies and functional racism, and they throw it all at the screen, and they were trying, you know, now they have you on your back feet; it’s just insane what they do.
Chinese land purchases in the U.S. have become a growing concern among lawmakers and national security experts. The Trump White House has signaled an effort to ban China from buying U.S. farmland, particularly near military installations. According to a 2023 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Canada holds 33% of foreign-owned U.S. agricultural and nonagricultural land, while China holds just 1%. However, the USDA acknowledged significant public concern regarding Chinese land holdings.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has emphasized that banning Chinese land ownership is a priority. “One of the very, very top of the list perhaps is the Chinese purchase of our farmland. A lot of that land is around some of our military outposts,” Rollins said in a recent interview.
Concerns over national security have already prompted action in Texas, where lawmakers blocked a Chinese company from constructing a wind farm in Val Verde County. The Blue Hills Wind Farm was slated for the Devil’s River area, about 200 miles northwest of San Antonio, raising alarms over potential risks to critical infrastructure and national security.
Property owners and conservationists were the first to object to the project, citing environmental concerns and the risks of a foreign entity connecting to the Texas power grid.
Bass has been at the forefront of exposing such threats, exposing a Chinese landowner with alleged ties to the CCP, Sun Guangxin, who had planned to build the wind farm. Bass captured images of an airstrip on Sun’s ranch, alleging that Sun is a former general with strong connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
“When you’re able to plug directly in, you’re able to map it, you’re also able to upload malware, you can do all kinds of horrible things to our grid,” Bass warned.
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