DoD Claims Proposed Chinese-Owned Mill by US Air Base Poses ‘Significant Threat’
Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota
InternationalIndiaAfricaThe US has claimed in recent years that many things associated with China pose a threat to national security, from Huawei’s 5G internet service to Confucius Institutes. According to a senior US Air Force official, the latest threat is a corn mill that a Chinese-owned company is seeking to build.In a letter to North Dakota’s two US Senators, Assistant Air Force Secretary Andrew P. Hunter warned the proximity of the proposed mill to Grand Forks Air Force Base “presents a significant threat to national security.”The proposed plant would be built on 300 acres of land about 12 miles from the air base by Fufeng Group, a Shandong-based producer of food additives and other food products. Fufeng acquired the land in 2021 for $2.7 million, and the project would cost $700 million to construct.Following the letter’s publication, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said on Wednesday that the project would be canceled and Bismarck would support the city in “exploring additional opportunities for value-added agriculture.”Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski welcomed the decision at first, since the plant will bring hundreds of jobs to the small city. However, after a senior office at the nearby air base raised alarm last April, claiming the mill could secretly be used to spy on signals passing through the base.“Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets,” USAF Maj. Jeremy Fox wrote in an internal memo viewed by US media. Any such data collection “would present a costly national security risk causing grave damage to United States’ strategic advantages.”
Analysis‘Really Silly Actions’: US Efforts to Isolate China’s Tech Sector Will Backfire, Expert SaysYesterday, 17:30 GMTGrand Forks was once a major nuclear weapons base during the Cold War, housing both B-52 bombers and nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missile interceptors. Today, it has morphed into an ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) hub, flying RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, and a new Space Networking Center was recently approved, which would become “the backbone for all global US military communications.”Eric Chutorash, chief operating officer of Fufeng USA, the US subsidiary of Fufeng, told US media the site would “absolutely” not be used for espionage.“I can’t imagine anyone that we hire that’s going to even do that,” Chutorash said. “We’re under US law, I’m an American citizen, I grew up my whole life here, and I am not going to be doing any type of espionage activities or be associated with a company that does, and I know my team feels the exact same way.”The project is just the latest to be blocked by the US government over national security concerns. In 2019, the Commerce Department banned Americans from buying products from Shenzhen-based tech giant Huawei unless they had a special license – a loophole that was discarded this past autumn. Numerous other Chinese companies ranging from tech firms to various manufacturers have similarly been blacklisted.The Australian government faced pressure in 2019 to revoke an iron mining concession given to a firm owned by Chinese steel giant JiuJiang that happened to be located inside the Royal Australian Air Force’s Woomera Range Complex, over similar concerns about signal security.
