7 days ago
Utah governor tells China ‘We are not for sale'
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox doubled down Tuesday on the state's ban on land sales to foreign adversaries, saying the state blocked a Chinese-owned corporation from buying Utah land near an airport in the last few months.
The governor held a press conference at a small family farm in Utah County to declare that the Beehive State — which he said 'used to walk on pins and needles' when dealing with China — will be having none of it.
'We don't care anymore,' Cox said. 'It's saber rattling. This is what they do. And we're way past that.'
Cox announced that in the past few months, Utah acted to block an attempted land purchase near Provo Airport by Cirrus Aircraft, a company that is majority-owned by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.
The proposed investment would have meant millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs for the state of Utah, Cox said. But the national security threats posed by the nation of China are such that the state has drawn a line in the sand, he said.
'We are not for sale,' Cox said.
Utah was one of the first states to enact legislation over China-related national security concerns. In 2021, the Legislature passed a resolution encouraging the closure of Confucius Institutes, Chinese-partnered language learning centers, at Utah universities.
The state later received praise from generals, assistant secretaries of defense and the Association of Defense Communities for laws passed in 2023 and 2024 that restricted the purchase of land by certain countries.
In 2023, Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, introduced legislation prohibiting foreign military companies from owning land in the state. This was followed a year later by an all out prohibition on land buys by businesses headquartered in China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.
The bill, which was passed unanimously and signed by the governor in 2024, required these 'restricted foreign entities' to sell their interests in the state within one year or have their property confiscated and sold by the state, in which case the proceeds would go to the general fund.
This upcoming legislative session Pierucci said to expect legislation addressing vulnerabilities to foreign influence over Utah's water infrastructure and the forced disclosure of critical minerals when ranchers sell products to China.
'The (Chinese Communist Party) is so invested in playing the long game,' Pierucci said. 'Taken together, these bills are far more than policy. They are a declaration that Utah will not be intimidated or infiltrated by authoritarian regimes, and they affirm that we value freedom, transparency and security over short term economic convenience.'
Over the past few months, around 35,000 of the roughly 37,000 acres owned by Chinese organizations were sold to Utah buyers Steve Styler and Matt Garff, according to Cox, who said the Department of Public Safety is continuing investigations to identify the remaining landowners.
The push to counter Chinese influence in the state is essential considering the state's high concentration of military bases, intelligence personal and individuals with international connections, speakers explained.
'It's important for folks to become wide awake to the issue,' Rep. Jefferson Burton, R-Salem, told the Deseret News. 'We're just simply trying to keep America safe, keep our citizens safe.'
During his remarks, Cox spoke about China's decision to close congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and why he believes China took that action.
Over the past few months, Chinese government authorities have shut down multiple meetinghouses of the church, Cox said, including local and expatriate branches in Beijing.
This fits into a broader strategy by the People's Republic of China to wield 'leverage' over religious institutions, non profit groups, private industry and public office across the West to influence policy decisions, Cox said.
Cox was joined by Pierucci, Burton, four other state lawmakers, Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason, Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall and Strider Executive Vice President Cooper Wimmer.
For the past two years, Utah has partnered with Strider, a nationally recognized intelligence firm based in South Jordan, to identify foreign influence operations in the state and to track down Chinese land ownership, Cox confirmed.
The group specializes in using AI large language models to scour foreign databases to locate potential security threats, including spies, that adversarial nations have deployed to steal industry secrets or infiltrate U.S. government.
'We're involved with an asymmetric war with China where they're using influence, they're using the press, religion, they're using media,' Wimmer said. 'And with open source intelligence we're able to understand what they're doing.'
One of Strider's expertise is breaking down the proprietary ownership of land or businesses to spot if the Chinese Communist Party has even a 1% 'golden share,' which is enough to give the country control over company decisions.
In recent years, multiple instances of Chinese operations have surfaced in Utah, including at least three Mandarin-speaking Utahns who were separately arrested and charged for attempting to deliver classified military materials and private intellectual property to Chinese counterparts.
Traditionally businesses and state governments did not have access to the kind of intelligence operations to spot espionage in international supply chains, and that's where Strider comes in, according to Strider CEO Greg Levesque.
Taking action against Chinese actors at the state level will not only protect Utah semiconductor, aerospace and defense companies from being spied on, it will bolster state and national security interests, Levesque said.
But there is more to be done at the government level, Levesque said. In 2023, Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney asked the U.S attorney general to address alleged Chinese intelligence center in Salt Lake City.
'I think the public needs to understand that nation states like China are mapping us out,' Levesque told the Deseret News. 'They're trying to dissect our system, our economy, how it works, and then they deploy intelligence resources after that.'
The state is still working with federal partners to address these so-called 'shadow precincts' in Salt Lake City, Cox said. While he couldn't share details the governor confirmed that 'we have had Chinese spies in Utah.'
