By: William Liao

When residents of Grand Forks, a town of about 59,000 inhabitants in North Dakota just 75 miles from the border with Canada, heard about a plan to build a new corn mill by a Chinese company, Fufeng, some were excited at the prospect. But others weren’t.

Town officials, including Mayor Brandon Bochenski, and even Doug Burgum, North Dakota’s Republican governor, touted the project as one that would bring a thousand construction jobs, and, when finished, two hundred permanent jobs too. Gov. Burgum praised it as a “huge opportunity” for all of North Dakota.

Despite this, many town residents opposed the project due to the Fufeng’s Chinese connections. Some think that the company, which makes components for animal feed, could use the new mill to spy on an Air Force base 15 miles away, claims the company denied.

Others questioned the idea of doing business with a company from China, which the U.S. government named a chief competitor for influence worldwide. In addition, the F.B.I called the country’s espionage efforts “grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.”

When Fufeng announced its intention to build the corn mill late last year, the discussion started with ordinary concerns like the amount of water needed to support the mill’s wet-milling process, the odor, and traffic. Disillusioned residents went around town, collecting signatures for a petition seeking a vote on the issue. Even though the petition eventually garnered 4,700 signatures, or around 8% of the town’s population, it was rejected on technical grounds.

Ben Grzadzielewski, one of the signature collectors, said that China was not his primary concern but that he was frustrated with the city administration, of which he said “try to make us look like tinfoil hat people.”

“Frank Matejcek, a semiretired farmer who owns land near the proposed construction site, said city officials had not been transparent in the annexation process and had failed to address his concerns about wastewater from the mill. But China was not his biggest worry, he said,” according to a New York Times article covering the issue.

Still, even as some expressed their concerns over other matters surrounding the construction of the new mill, China has been a primary focus, especially due to concerns that the mill could be used for espionage and the country’s human rights violations. Residents planted signs around town with “No! Fufeng” written on them, complete with a crossed-out hammer-and-sickle flag, an important communist symbol.

As the objections continued to grow, the issue made its way to Capitol Hill. The incident revealed how much business relations between the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, have deteriorated.

For years, Chinese companies have been making investments in the United States, including a glass factory set in an abandoned General Motors factory in Ohio and an old mill in Maine which resumed operations a few years ago. Even in Grand Forks itself, a Chinese company rescued a struggling aviation company, Cirrus Aircraft, over a decade ago in the aftermath of the Great Recession and remains a vital part of the town’s economy.

Despite the concerns, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, noted in a statement that Fufeng is a privately-owned company. “We oppose the malicious generalization of the concept of national security,” he said.

In addition, Eric Chutorash, the chief operating officer of Fufeng USA’s branch, stated that they didn’t have any sort of relationship with the Chinese government. “We’re going to buy corn locally in the U.S., we’re going to manufacture in the U.S., and we’re going to sell in the U.S.,” he said.

Grand Forks’ mayor also emphasized the economic benefits of the mill for his town, where around eighteen percent of residents live below the poverty line.

But the corn mill comes at a time when most Americans have overwhelmingly negative views of China. Over three-quarters surveyed in a Pew poll had an unfavorable view of the country, while around ninety percent said that China was not respecting the rights of its citizens.

Despite the fact that most Americans see China in a negative light, some emphasized that it was the Chinese government, not the Chinese people, which they were against.

“It’s not about the Chinese people,” said Jodi Carlson, a semiretired nurse. “It’s not about the Chinese culture. It is about Chinese communist government.”

Katie Dachtler, who represents a ward near the proposed site of the mill and the council’s only Asian-American member, was the only councilmember who voted against the mill, but she said that it was on the grounds of her residents’ legitimate concerns and not because of its connections to China – they thought the project was “moving ahead too quickly.” The population of Grand Forks only includes around 2,000 Asian-American residents.

However, she said that many opponents of the project had equated the Chinese people with the Chinese government, exposing longstanding racial biases. “Hate can only percolate — and I’m going to call it hate and people are going to cringe and not like that at all — but hate can only percolate underground for so long,” said Ms. Dachtler, who was born in South Korea, and whose term ended last month after she did not seek re-election. “At some point the pressure has to be relieved. And Fufeng has served as a catalyst for some of these folks to release that pressure.”

Amid that pressure, town officials agreed to secure a meeting with the F.B.I. to discuss any security concerns.

In April, the meeting was held behind closed doors, as per the request of the F.B.I., though that didn’t stop some residents who wanted to hear what they had to say from protesting. One man held up a sign that partially read “China Gave US Covid!” Someone else wrote a letter to the editor of the Grand Forks Herald mentioning “dog meat.” Ms. Dachtler also said that others repeated “Chinese Communist Party” in a concerning way.

Although town officials left the meeting saying that they got the impression that Fufeng posed no threat to national security, they acknowledged that F.B.I officials did not explicitly state it, only adding to critics’ suspicion.

“Maybe it’s just a corn mill,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, told Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chief of staff of the Air Force, in May during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “But it would also provide the potential at least for Chinese intelligence to engage in intelligence collection of various kinds.”

Eventually, the city council turned a blind eye to the complaints of residents and voted to approve the new corn mill almost unanimously. Later, they signed a development agreement with Fufeng and annexed the proposed site into the city limits. Although many months will pass before construction begins, it is yet another reminder of how our ‘democracy’ is failing.

Original Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/17/us/grand-forks-north-dakota-fufeng-china.html