Despite the fact of continued high-volume U.S. farm commodity exports to China, there are dramatic, phobic moves against imputed China threats from a number of flunky politicians in the Farm Belt. In North Dakota the last week of January, it became likely that the Chinese firm Fufeng Group will pull out of a $700 million project for a corn milling plant at Grand Forks, after local and Federal lawmakers lined up on the side of the U.S. Air Force/military-industrial complex against it. A Jan. 27 Air Force letter stated that the corn processing plant would be “a significant threat to national security,” being 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
In Texas, demonstrations of Chinese and other Asian-Americans took place in many cities in the week of Feb. 1, against a bill in the state legislature that calls for banning citizens, entities and governments from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from purchasing land in Texas, and containing related prohibitions.