A Chinese company was forced to sell land it owned near a military installation in Utah as a result of legislation passed by state lawmakers in recent years, Gov. Spencer Cox said Thursday.
The land, located about six miles from the Tooele Army Depot and roughly 70 miles from the Utah Test and Training Range, was owned by Mitime Utah Investment LLC, a company that Cox described as a shell company for the Chinese Communist Party.
“Utah is not naive to the world around us and what is happening. We recognize that there are certainly threats out there,” the governor said during a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday. “We are also home to critical military and intelligence infrastructure that matter to our national security, that protects this nation and protects our allies as well, and that means that what happens in Utah matters far beyond the borders of our state and even beyond the borders of our country.”
Mitime’s divestment of the property comes after Utah lawmakers passed a bill in 2023 aimed at blocking foreign entities from acquiring land in Utah. The state sent a letter to the company in November saying it was out of compliance and had to divest from the property, officials said Thursday.
The company owned the Utah Motorsports Campus, totaling more than 500 acres in Tooele County. It purchased the land in 2018 for $18.55 million.
Last July, Cox said the state had successfully blocked an effort by another company with ties to the Chinese government from buying land near the Provo airport.
The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, who now serves as the House majority whip.
“Our law restricts foreign adversaries like Russia, North Korea, Iran and China, but especially the Chinese Communist Party, [which] we have seen as a repeat offender,” Pierucci said at Thursday’s news conference. “We’ve seen their threats creeping in through subtle partnerships with schools, shell companies buying land and technology contracts that come with invisible strings.”
“We have no illusions about the CCP’s intentions,” Pierucci added, “and we refuse to look the other way.”
Cox told reporters Thursday that a foreign adversary having land so near a U.S. military installation was cause for concern in a number of ways.
“The ability to park a truck full of drones next to a facility is something that we’re always worried about,” he said. “We’re worried about spying on our test and training ranges, on our military bases, unauthorized drone access, that is, you know, photographing these bases. So those locations and proximity, those things absolutely matter.”
Officials did not release the name of the Utah company that acquired the land, though Pierucci said she had been told by a colleague who spoke with the new owner that the organization was “excited to revitalize” the area.
“So I think this is a great move, not just from a national security perspective, but for that county and that area that hasn’t had any development on this project thus far, and they’ll be able to move on,” she said.