States Look To Ban Chinese Real Estate Investment, Critics Call The Idea Racist

Eleven U.S. states are considering banning Chinese individuals and companies from buying real estate within their borders, The New York Times reports, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Chinese investors bought $6.1B worth of U.S. property in 2021, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors, mostly residential assets in California and Florida.

Texas is at the forefront of the movement, which has received heightened attention in the wake of the Chinese spy balloon that drifted through U.S. airspace and was eventually shot down by the U.S. government last week.

Texas has already banned Chinese investors — as well as those from Iran, North Korea and Russia — from infrastructure projects, and now a Texas state senator has proposed a complete ban on acquisitions by individual Chinese investors and other entities, as well as those from the three other countries.

The proposed Texas law would also bar purchases by those countries' citizens in the United States — including immigrant visa, or green card, holders, as well as asylum-seekers. But it wouldn't apply to U.S. citizens born in those countries. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said that he would sign such a ban if the legislature passed it.

In January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned “Chinese real estate speculators” to stay out of the state and expressed his support for a ban.

Though Republican legislators in Texas and other states are pushing for such bans, they aren't the exclusive purview of that party. The California Legislature, which is dominated by the Democratic Party, passed a bill in 2022 prohibiting any foreign government from purchasing, acquiring, leasing or holding an interest in agricultural land in the state, though existing ownership would be grandfathered in.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, saying it would create “new and arduous responsibilities” for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. 

Critics of such bans say they would be difficult to enforce and, in the case of a ban on Chinese citizens' purchases, would smack of racism and increase anti-Asian sentiment.

"It's a resurrection of the 'Yellow Peril': We are outsiders who are threats," Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University, told USA Today. "They are creating policies that aren't grounded in evidence or sound economic analysis but are really based on stereotypes and outsized fears.”

Such laws might also be challenged in court.

“Such a bill would raise a host of constitutional issues,” Stephen I. Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas, told the NYT.