Alabama Chinese Property Bill Update
The state Senate has amended the bill considerably.
AL.com reports: Alabama ban on Chinese citizens buying property draws opposition; bill changed.
Today, the Senate Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation Committee adopted a substitute version that changed the substance of the bill, narrowing the focus to farm property and land near military bases and critical infrastructure like power plants, water and sewer treatment plants, gas processing centers, seaports, and airports.
The substitute bill would not ban Chinese citizens who live in Alabama from buying property. It would ban the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia from buying property in Alabama that is used for agricultural or forestry or that is within 10 miles of a military base or critical infrastructure. People and businesses in those four nations, defined as “foreign countries of concern,” would also be under the ban.
The bill says the ban would also apply to “a person, country, or government identified on any sanctions list of the United State Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.”
While I still think that the main output here is to signal xenophobia (as well as solving a nonexistent problem), this is a massive improvement over the bill I discussed yesterday.
You are correct to note it’s mostly a pander to the base. Which seems to be the only thing GOP pols are interested in. As I noted last night, we see the same thing in Tallahassee, capital of South Alabama. Almost the same bill, but DeUseless beat y’all to it.
Conservatives, especially Republican Pols, need an enemy. The commies kind of dropped out (yes, the Chinese are still commie, but Dr. T is correct to note it seems to be more xenophobia), gay bashing stopped working, now they seem to be flailing, desperately trying to use teachers, librarians, immigrants, trans, Antifa, a little traditional anti-semitism, and now Chinese. Russia would be so easy to use, and the flip-flopping on Russia is a fascinating study. A conflict between Russia actually being an enemy, but awkward to use as such when GOPs have made such a big deal out of white Christians.
This reminds me of the US-Japan tradewars in the 1980s when Japanese conglomerates were buying real estate in the US as well as setting up auto factories. There were efforts to curtail real estate investment buying. The whole thing crashed when the Japanese economy busted but the paranoia was there and racism was there.
@Mr. Prosser:..This reminds me of the US-Japan tradewars in the 1980s when Japanese conglomerates were buying real estate in the US as well as setting up auto factories.
I recall many of my co workers whining about this.
“The Japanese are buying up our country. This must be stopped!”
When I would tell them that there would not be a problem if greedy Americans would stop selling their real estate to the Japanese I was always met with total silence.
@Mr. Prosser: @Mister Bluster:
Back in the eighties, there was a Harvard Business School case study titled “Japan, Inc.”
@Mr. Prosser and Mister Bluster: I worked in a large Wall Street law firm at the time with many foreign business concerns as clients. It was a well known joke within the firm that while Americans were aghast at the Japanese buying everything, Japanese investment was dwarfed by the investment from various European countries, particularly the UK and the Netherlands.
@Joe:..Japanese investment was dwarfed by the investment from various European countries, particularly the UK and the Netherlands.
AKA white people.
@CSK: I was living in Japan during a lot of this. All my fellow gaijin friends had a fit of giggles when reading anything about Japan being this huge, well-oiled juggernaut with great master plans ready to totally flatten the outside world.
(I may be responsible for Japan finally getting its internet up and running, however. Long story.)