(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is working within her state to counter China’s steadily increasing influence over America, despite the White House’s apparent apathy toward their relationship with the country.
The Republican governor recently made the call to review state investments in Chinese companies that may compromise national security, Just the News reported.
“South Dakotans deserve to know if their taxpayer dollars are being invested to benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” Noem said Thursday.
“The Investment Council has ensured that South Dakota has the best-funded pension in the country,” she added. “But it is not possible to make good deals with bad people.”
The governor also banned TikTok, a social media platform owned by Chinese company ByteDance, from all government computers and phones, and she promised to criminally prosecute workers who violated the ban.
The order, which Noem signed last week, was spurred by intelligence showing “how the Chinese government and CCP is using the information they’re gathering off of TikTok to threaten the United States of America, to learn more about our habits, what we search.”
Texas, Maryland, Oklahoma and Tennessee all followed Noem’s lead.
The South Dakota governor is looking into ways to keep China from renting farmland in the rural state after it was revealed that Beijing as been buying up American farmland via shell corporations to dominate the global food supply.
There is a law on the books preventing foreign powers from owning South Dakotan farmland, but Noem is looking for ways to prevent them from rental and leasing agreements as well.
“I’m reexamining that,” she said, “and looking to bring legislation that will not only address purchasing of land, but also make sure that those who hate us and other foreign entities can’t have long-term leases, that they can’t come in and lock up land for an agenda that isn’t good for these people that live here in South Dakota, but also our country.”
The Biden administration has taken a rather lukewarm approach to China’s influence in America, using TikTok to reach young voters despite constant warnings from the FCC and the FBI.
The DOJ also shut down an FBI project to find Chinese spies infiltrating academic institutions.
