WASHINGTON: While US lawmakers unanimously passed a resolution “condemning the Chin­ese Communist Party’s use of a high-altitude surveillance balloon over United States territory as a brazen violation of US sovereignty”, the state of Texas is considering barring Chinese citizens from buying property on ‘national security grounds.

The Texas proposal also would bar Russians, Iranians and North Koreans from owning real estate. But the principal target appears to be Chinese nationals.

As tensions with Beijing rise after several balloon-related political skirmishes, other states may follow suit.

Reacting to the move, Chinese foreign ministry on Friday claimed the US is violating the principles of market economy and international trade rules in considering a ban on Chinese citizens buying property in the United States.

“Generalising the concept of national security and politicising economic, trade and investment issues violate the rules of market economy and international trade rules,” spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.

The balloon’s days-long flyover from Alaska to South Carolina captured the attention of regular Americans and officials alike, before the US military shot it down off the country’s east coast Saturday.

According to Biden, military officials warned that falling debris could have posed a risk to the US population on the ground if the balloon and its high-tech payload — whose remnants ended up in the Atlantic Ocean — had been shot down earlier, while it was over land.

For congressman Michael McCaul, the resolution’s sponsor, the balloon affair offered a silver lining. “The good news is it galvanised the American people’s opposition to Chairman Xi (Jinping)’s communist regime,” he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied” with the US resolution, calling it “pure political manipulation and hype.”

China had insisted the balloon was a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes.”

A Pentagon official told a separate Senate hearing on Thursday the United States is still trying to figure out what exactly the balloon, which it has said was deployed for espionage purposes, was looking for.

“We have some very good guesses about that,” assistant defence secretary Jedidiah Royal said.

Meanwhile, the US state of Texas considered barring Chinese citizens from buying property on national security grounds. The draft proposal was offered up in November 2022 by Republican Lois Kolkhorst, a state senator in Texas in the southern US.

“One of the top concerns for many Texans is national security and the growing ownership of Texas land by certain adversarial foreign entities,” Kolkhorst has said.

Governor Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican and fierce advocate of more severe immigration policies, says he will sign and enact the proposal if it passes the state senate.

‘Blatant discrimination’

Foreign ownership of farmland and other real estate, particularly by Chinese citizens or businesses, is becoming a hot issue in the United States, and not only in Texas. Florida, Arkansas, South Dakota and eight other states are considering legislation to restrict foreign ownership.

Texas, though, may be a bellwether. With 28.8 million citizens, Texas is the second most populous state. Of its residents, 1.4 million define their ethnicity as Asian, and 223,500 say they are of Chinese origin, US census data shows.

Houston, the fourth largest US city, has 156,000 residents who identify as Asian.

They include US citizens with Asian heritage but also Chinese permanent residents — or green card holders — who are not naturalised citizens.

“All these people are paying taxes here,” said Ling Luo, a first-generation Chinese immigrant who is director of the Asian Americans Leadership Council. “(They) are paying a tremendous contribution to the universities, to education.” Even though the proposal also targets other nationalities, Luo said the Chinese are most numerous.

Others say ethnic Chinese are simply the target of discrimination du jour.

“Our country goes through these waves of finding immigrant groups... to [demonise],” said Gene Wu, a member of the Texas House of Representatives.

He noted, “China is Texas’s second largest trading partner. And China is the third largest purchaser of Texas goods.” A proposal like the one on the table, he said, “could [jeopardise] all of those contracts.”

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2023