A Chinese national, Chen Tianqiao, has become one of the largest individual owners of American land by a non-US citizen. He has made his fortune through online gaming and now owns 198,000 acres of Oregon timberland, making him the country’s 82nd-largest property owner. Chen acquired the acreage in 2015 for $85 million from Fidelity National Financial Ventures. The beneficial owner of the acreage has recently been disclosed as Chen’s Singapore-based holding group, Shanda Asset Management, according to Oregon tax records.
Foreign ownership of US land, particularly land used for farming, has become a sensitive political issue in recent years. As of 2021, around 40 million acres of American agricultural land was owned by non-US interests, with entities from China owning the equivalent of 0.03% of all US farmland.
Such foreign ownership has led some lawmakers to push for national rules restricting foreign investment in American agricultural property. Although almost half of all states have implemented some sort of restrictions on foreign ownership, the Senate voted in July to ban the sale of farmland beyond a certain acreage or value to people or businesses from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. However, the measure was not signed into law.
Chen’s acquisition of the Oregon property has made him one of the biggest non-American owners of American land, with only the Irving family of Canada, who owns over 1.2 million acres of Maine timberland, owning more. Chen started Shanda Interactive, an online gaming company, in 1999 in Zhejiang Province.
Within just five years, it had become one of China’s largest internet companies and was listed on Nasdaq in the US. However, in 2012, Chen decided to take the company private and moved his holding group’s headquarters from China to Singapore.
Chen’s success in online gaming has led him to invest in American land, prompting some concerns about foreign ownership. Despite foreign investment in American agricultural property being a sensitive political issue, Chen’s investment is not that significant, with entities from China owning the equivalent of just 0.03% of all US farmland. However, foreign ownership of land will undoubtedly remain a key issue in American politics.
