Florida is rejecting influence by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the state’s economy, Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a press conference on Tuesday in response to a question on the administration looking into preventing China from buying property in the Sunshine State.

“My view on the — our economy in Florida is, you know, we don’t want to have holdings by hostile nations,” DeSantis said at the press conference, which focused on conservation efforts.

“And so if you look at the Chinese Communist Party, they’ve been very active throughout the Western hemisphere in gobbling up land and investing in different things,” DeSantis said, plainly stating that it is not in the best interests of Florida to have the CCP owning farmland or land “close to military bases.”

The governor emphasized “no farmland” but went even further, asking why anyone would want the CCP buying residential developments either.

“We do not need to have CCP influence in Florida’s economy. We’ve already taken steps,” he said, highlighting his administration’s efforts to get rid of CCP influence, including banning Confucius Institutes from universities and  state colleges. DeSantis signed the Confucius Institutes legislation in June 2021:

“We’ve also done things to limit their ability to fund research in our, in our universities. I think we’re going to go even further than that. The legislature only went so far a couple years ago. I think there’s an appetite to do even more because their influence in our society has been very insidious,” he continued, noting CCP’s influence in the entertainment industry and finance and calling out Wall Street and Disney, specifically.

Undergraduate student Moe Lewis, left, shows her watercolor painting of peony leaves at a traditional Chinese painting class at the Confucius Institute at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, on May 2, 2018. (Matthew Pennington/AP)

“We are, we are pretty big fish now,” he said. “I mean, I think we have the 13th or 14th biggest economy in the world if we were our own country in Florida. So, you know, we’re  a force to be reckoned with.”

DeSantis also emphasized the importance of not relying on a hostile nation “for things that are integral for our quality of life and security.”

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