Tester bashes Chinese balloon, buying farmland

In a press conference last week, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont, bashed a Chinese high-altitude balloon that crossed the United States, including over Montana, before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina Feb. 4 by a U.S. fighter jet, and also pushed his bill that would ban antagonistic foreign governments like China from buying U.S. farmland.

"This was a clear violation of U.S. airspace and a completely unacceptable provocation from China," Tester said about the balloon shot down Feb. 4.

He said he led his Senate colleagues in a resolution condemning the balloon, which passed the Senate unanimously last week, following a similar resolution passed in the House.

China's ceremonial parliament condemned the Congressional resolutions as trampling national sovereignty.

When asked if the resolutions could cause a problem with U.S.-Chinese relations, Tester answered, "Absolutely.

"Now look, China pushes the envelope every single day, and the folks who think that this balloon came over here by accident are wrong-headed in that belief. Nothing the Chinese Communist Party does happens by accident."

"We shot it down within our space off the coast of South Carolina, and they came back and said, 'Oh gosh, that's a horrible thing.' No, the horrible thing was, was they put a spy balloon into our airspace, and that's what the horrible thing is

"They're going to continue to act improperly until they get a message from the world community that this isn't how the world works," Tester added.

He said he thinks the balloon should have been shot down when it was first detected over the Aleutian Islands by Alaska, but he said the top military leaders advised President Joe Biden to wait, and he trusts the military leadership to analyze the situation.

"I just have a fundamental problem with balloons flying where they shouldn't be, especially when they're controlled by the Chinese Communist Party," Tester added.

He talked about the three objects shot down in the weeks following the first balloon being shot down, and said not much information was available yet on those, including on an object that led to the airspace over Havre being restricted, although it appears that was the same object which, later, was shot down over Lake Huron, although Tester said the military is not certain of that.

He acknowledged a question asking about "atmospheric trash," that the following three objects could be weather balloons or atmospheric testing equipment launched by nation states or businesses or just hobbyists.

Tester said he, as chair of the appropriations subcommittee on defense, and the ranking member of that subcommittee, Sen, Susan Collins, R-Maine, would work to make sure a plan is in place to identify aerial objects and their potential threat.

"We need a plan that's going to be able to determine what the dangers are to us of that balloon, and then we need to plan to how to bring it down without using the $400,000 dollar missile every time," he said.

And he said he wants to take action to keep China, and other threatening countries, from undermining national security by buying agricultural land.

"They will do everything in their power to weaken this nation. If their actions over the past decade haven't made it clear, this month's spy ballon should," Tester said. "China wants to be the global economic leader. And they're actively working to undermine our national security at every level. For too long, that's included attempts to purchase American farmland and agribusiness. Food security is national security. If you control food, you control people and we need to keep China and other foreign adversaries away from our food supply."

Tester said he introduced, with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, the Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security act, otherwise known as the PASS Act.

"This legislation will outright ban China. Russia, Iran and North Korea from investing in, purchasing, leasing are otherwise acquiring U.S. farmland, Tester said. "It will appoint the secretary of agriculture to the committee on foreign investment in the United States, also known as CFIUS."

Tester said determining what land foreign countries the bill would ban own might be difficult, but it should be attainable.

He said countries like China owning ag land could have negative impacts in two main areas.

"Number one, they start shipping, as they buy enough land, they start shipping that food out of here and we don't have access to it to feed our country," Tester said. "That's a bad thing.

"I think even a greater concern than that is their ability to buy and utilize that land to set up equipment, to spy on us, and that's a problem, that's a big, big problem," he said. "So it's both food security and its national security and it comes both from a food production standpoint and a military asset standpoint."