Michael Snyder, Contributor

Activist Post

A Chinese group known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to construct a “China City” with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America.

This “China City” would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated purchase.

In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years. There has even been talk of establishing “special economic zones” inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen. It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products. Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms.

The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000 people, but big changes are coming their way. The following is from a recent Dayton Daily News article about this new project….

A group of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for 200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011, according to local officials and property records.

Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new “city” into the existing community in and around Milan.

Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming over from China. According to the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units “would be marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United States”.

In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of Michigan.

Doug Smith, senior vice president for business and community development for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., recently said the following about what the Chinese group plans to do….

It’s a group that wants to build a China city, starting with housing over there in Milan.

Milan is not far from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which is a very popular destination for Chinese students. Apparently that is one reason why Milan was chosen.

This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and specifically designed for Chinese.

But isn’t this supposed to be America?

Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet. It still must be approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.

For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of the country.

For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio. The following is from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011….

Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.

So should we be alarmed that the Chinese are buying up pieces of America?

Well, if they simply wanted to enjoy living in America and wanted to integrate into the wider community that would be one thing.

But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist China inside of U.S. territory.

In a previous article entitled “China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho“, I discussed a potential deal that Sinomach (a company controlled by the Chinese government) was exploring with the government of Idaho. The following is a description of that potential project from an article in the Idaho Statesman….

A Chinese national company is interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport.

There was talk that this “technology zone” would be modeled after the “special economic zones” that have been developed in China. The city of Shenzhen is perhaps the most famous example of this.

Fortunately that deal appears to have stalled, but other mammoth deals have been moving forward in other parts of the country.

For example, the Chinese have been very busy gobbling up oil and gas fields. The following is a quote from a local Texas news source about a deal that a company owned by the Chinese government did with Chesapeake Energy down in Texas….

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

You can read more about that particular deal right here.

So is it really a good idea to be allowing the Chinese to buy up our precious energy resources?

The answer to that question is obvious.

Sadly, the examples noted above are not isolated incidents. The truth is that the Chinese have been snapping up real estate and business assets all over America as a recent Forbes article explained….

According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are ‘snapping up luxury apartments’ and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.

So get ready – the Chinese are buying up U.S. land and they are moving in whether you like it or not.

So what will the long-term consequences be of allowing a communist superpower to buy up large sections of America?

That is a very good question.

This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.