Shortly before Ron DeSantis launched his bid for the Republican nomination, the governor of Florida signed three bills to “crack down on Communist China”, as he put it. The laws stop Chinese firms buying agricultural land, block certain apps owned by Chinese companies being used in state institutions, and curb ties between Florida’s higher-education institutions and those in any “country of concern”. China-bashing has been a staple of presidential campaigns for a decade. Now state legislatures have discovered a taste for it.

China is one of the only bipartisan issues at the moment, says Maggie Mick of MultiState, a consultancy focused on state politics. A deluge of legislation is coming before statehouses. Many have enacted laws similar to Florida’s on education and land ownership. Texas even tried to stop Chinese citizens buying property (along with people from Iran, North Korea and Russia). The original bill would have banned even dual nationals and green-card holders from buying land. Legislators in the biennial session, which ended this week, eventually dropped it.

Indiana has passed a law requiring its state pension system to divest from Chinese companies; other states are mulling similar legislation. More than half of all states already prohibit the use of TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, on government phones. (Some limit other Chinese apps, too.) In May Montana became the first state to outlaw the downloading of TikTok, from January 2024, though the bill may prove unenforceable.

For much of their history, statehouses legislated mostly on local issues or followed national policies. Now that one party controls the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature in 39 states, it is fairly easy to pass legislation—particularly compared with Congress. Both Republican and Democratic statehouses use these bills to register discontent with the federal government’s failure to act. But they have real consequences.

Think local, act global

In the 1980s, when a rising Japan was seen as a threat to America’s ascendancy, many expressed concern about Japanese purchases of American assets. Now, rising anxiety about Chinese entities buying land in America tracks growing tensions between the two countries, says Caitlin Welsh of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank. Foreign businesses and governments are prohibited from buying agricultural land in around two dozen states—most of them Republican. (States run by Democrats more often require such buyers to ask permission to acquire land.)

Though the bills often avoid mentioning China, their target is clear. “Communist China, America’s greatest foe, is on a bender...buying up farmland,” wrote Sid Miller, head of the Texas Agriculture Department last August. Legislators are understandably wary about foreign outfits buying land near military bases or critical infrastructure. So far, though, most concern about Chinese landgrabs is misplaced. Foreign entities own just 3% of all privately held agricultural land in the United States, and China’s share accounts for less than 1% of the total; it ranks 16th on the list of foreign owners, according to the Department of Agriculture. The bills say more about American anxieties than about Chinese ambitions, reckons Ms Welsh of CSIS.

In higher education, at least ten states have tried to restrict ties between local institutions and Chinese ones, though only a handful have passed legislation. Most say they are acting on national-security grounds. Jerry Cirino, an Ohio state senator and sponsor of the state’s “Higher Education Enhancement Act”, said in a newspaper interview that action was necessary because China’s global activities are “far more egregious than invading Ukraine”.

Education exchanges helped thaw relations between America and China in the 1970s. Cutting these back threatens an economic as well as cultural export. No country sends more students to America than China, whose nationals made up a third of all international students there (before covid) in 2019-20. International students contributed $1bn to the economies of Ohio and Florida in 2021-22, and nearly twice that in Texas, according to the Association of International Educators, which promotes such ties. Many universities argue that the restrictions are pointless. Universities are there to disseminate knowledge, not hide it, argues Sarah Spreitzer of the American Council on Education.

The federal administration already struggles to speak with one voice on China: preventing the world’s most important bilateral relationship from deteriorating further requires a delicate balance of strength and conciliation. Local legislation makes the executive look even more incoherent. The autonomy of America’s states is enshrined in the constitution, yet few have the full gamut of expertise on foreign affairs. And foreign governments, particularly centralised ones like China’s, may see state lawmaking as just another aspect of the national agenda. Disgruntled state legislatures could end up influencing America’s foreign policy even more than their ambitious governors intended.■

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