North Carolina Democrat Rep. Don Davis is facing the fight of his political life, squaring off this November with retired colonel Republican Laurie Buckhout in a race ranked as a toss up.
And as the contest enters the spotlight, so do reports of the first-term congressman’s longstanding ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Davis’ activities involving the American adversary, dating back to his days in the state Senate, have become the talk of local media.
In 2013, the Democrat took a nine-day, all-expenses-paid trip to China, funded by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, an arm of the CCP.
The group seeks out foreigners friendly to China to engage in “people-to-people diplomacy” and shape “alliances of convenience with other political parties, social groups, and individuals” to “strengthen the overall position of the Leninist Party and sow division among its enemies,” per the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan DC think tank.
That eastern excursion wasn’t Davis’ only communication with Chinese Communists. Just a year later, Davis spoke to Wuhan University exchange students about the role governments play in health care.
“It was great to have an opportunity to participate in that exchange,” Davis said at the time. “It’s always good hearing from a different perspective.”
China’s attempt to wield influence in the Tar Heel State hasn’t stopped at Congress. North Carolina is home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of Chinese-owned farmland. While several states have banned the sale of farmland to those with ties to adversarial nations including China, North Carolina is not one of them.
In Davis’ district alone, Chinese entities own 6,500 acres of farmland — but the vice ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee who represents it has been mum on the issue.
Other congressional lawmakers have sounded the alarm on China’s purchases of American land, particularly near US military installations. North Carolina’s foreign-owned farmland sits uncomfortably close to a Coast Guard base in Elizabeth City, NC, and Norfolk Naval Base in neighboring Virginia.
Former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), who chaired the House Select Committee on the CCP before retiring this year, predicted China’s next target in April, declaring, “From Chinese Communist Party-affiliated purchases of agricultural land to efforts by the party to influence state and local politics, states are on the front lines of our New Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party.”
