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The White House has ordered a Chinese group operating a crypto mining operation in Wyoming to sell the land where its servers are located. This is because the facility is adjacent to a base that stores U.S. nuclear ballistic missiles.
President Joe Biden has ordered MineOne Partners and its partners to sell land adjacent to Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming within 120 days. He said the British Virgin Islands group, which is majority-owned by Chinese, had not notified the U.S. government of the sensitive transaction.
The US military has deployed Minuteman III nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles at Warren Air Force Base in southeastern Wyoming. In the divestiture order issued Monday, Biden said MineOne used specialized equipment for cryptocurrency mining, including foreign-sourced technology that posed a national security risk.
“Foreign-owned real estate is located in close proximity to strategic missile bases and key elements of America’s nuclear triad, as well as foreign-sourced special features that could potentially facilitate surveillance and espionage. “The presence of the devices poses a national security risk to the United States,” Biden said in his order.
The move comes as Congress grows concerned about Chinese groups purchasing farmland and other land across the United States, particularly near military installations. It also comes one year after a U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese reconnaissance balloon off the U.S. East Coast. The balloon had been flying over North America for more than a week, hovering over a nuclear missile facility in Montana.
“This is a decades-long conflict between Chinese investors and the security community,” said Ivan Schlager, a national security law expert at Kirkland & Ellis, adding that similar incidents across the U.S. He said there was. “Are they serendipitous investment opportunities, or are they more strategic?”
The White House said MineOne purchased the land in June 2022 without notifying the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency committee that scrutinizes transactions involving national security concerns.
Cfius began investigating this transaction after receiving information from the public. Biden ordered the sale after a panel concluded it was impossible to complete a mitigation deal that addressed security concerns.
The executive order requires MineOne to remove the equipment from the land within 90 days. It also immediately prohibited the group and its partners from accessing the location, unless for the purpose of removing equipment, until Cfius was satisfied that all equipment was gone.
The incident is the latest example of tensions between the United States and China over national security issues. This comes as both countries continue efforts to stabilize relations, which hit rock bottom last year.
But U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed that the Biden administration will not hesitate to take punitive action if it believes China or Chinese companies pose a national security threat.
