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-Land of the Free
Leadership Of Major US Landowner Smithfield Foods is Chock-Full Of Chinese Communist Party Members
2024-01-27
[DailyCaller] Top executives at Hong Kong-based WH Group Limited, the world’s largest pork producer that controls vast swaths of U.S. farmland through its American subsidiary, are Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of corporate records and state-run media reports.

Records and reports reviewed by the DCNF identify four top executives and the chairman of the pork giant as CCP members with extensive ties to the Chinese government. WH Group controls nearly 150,000 acres of land across 29 U.S. states through its subsidiary Smithfield Foods, a family-run business established in 1936, which it purchased for $7.1 billion in 2013. While a keyword search on Smithfield’s website returned only two articles mentioning the firm’s relationship with WH Group, neither of the two articles mentioned China. An online map of Smithfield’s global business activities does not list any operations in, or connection to, Asia, despite archived reports from their website suggesting otherwise.

Revelations about WH Group’s CCP and Chinese government ties, which the DCNF found by cross-referencing the firm’s roster with Chinese-language news reports and corporate records, come as Republicans push for bans on Chinese rural land purchases, in particular, those close to U.S. military bases.

Several states, including Florida, have taken legislative and executive action to ban Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland. Recently, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson issued an executive order banning such purchases near military installations. GOP lawmakers also recently pressed the Biden administration to launch an investigation into the second-largest foreign owner of U.S. land after his CCP membership came to light.

“No foreign government should be owning American farmland,” said Matt Shoemaker, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who is running for Congress in North Carolina as a Republican. “It is a national security issue, for obvious reasons.”

WH Group’s chairman, Wan Long, as well as multiple board members and some senior management were identified as CCP members in a 2022 Chinese-language stock exchange filing from a subsidiary called Shuanghui Investment and Development Co. (SIDC). WH Group and Chinese corporate records from SIDC also show that WH Group’s chairman and several top executives hold, or previously held, Chinese government positions.

Between 2010 and 2021, the amount of U.S. land owned by Chinese entities skyrocketed from 13,730 acres to 383,935 acres, according to USDA reports.
Related:
WH Group: 2023-07-18 How China Is Destroying American Farmland-And Getting All The Best Ham And Bacon!
WH Group: 2020-05-12 US processing plants quadruple pork exports to China despite COVID-19 slowing down production by up to 40% and warnings of meat supply shortages for Americans
WH Group: 2020-04-16 Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods shutters two more meat processing plants in Missouri and Wisconsin after massive coronavirus outbreak closed South Dakota factory, threatening the American food supply chain
Related:
Smithfield Foods: 2023-07-18 How China Is Destroying American Farmland-And Getting All The Best Ham And Bacon!
Smithfield Foods: 2022-06-12 Smithfield Foods to shutter California meat-packing plant
Smithfield Foods: 2020-05-12 US processing plants quadruple pork exports to China despite COVID-19 slowing down production by up to 40% and warnings of meat supply shortages for Americans
Posted by:NoMoreBS

#7  Known by everyone before the sale was green lighted by the fed gov, so maybe CCP influence story there?

Awful products anyways.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-01-27 11:28  

#6  Remedied with the stroke of a pen,
Posted by: Super Hose   2024-01-27 10:29  

#5  Plus their ham is so salty you can barely eat it.
Posted by: ed in texas   2024-01-27 09:04  

#4  Total US farmland = 893.4 million acres, as of 2022.

150,000/893400000 = .00016 = panic inducing number?
Posted by: M. Murcek   2024-01-27 08:38  

#3  Can't move the land. That has complications.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-01-27 08:30  

#2  Anyone who didn’t know this is an idiot
Posted by: Xyz   2024-01-27 02:07  

#1  Yea, so?
Posted by: Grom the Reflective   2024-01-27 00:53  

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