A senior Texas senator has demanded that the Pentagon shut down a large wind farm linked to a Chinese billionaire, claiming it poses a significant threat to national security, DailyMail.com can reveal.
John Cornyn has said that former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) captain Sun Guangxin is “likely planning” to use dozens of 700-foot-tall wind turbines to spy on a nearby air base “at the behest of the Chinese government.”
In a letter written to Department of Defense (DoD) CEO Steve Sample on July 10, obtained by DailyMail.com, Senator Cornyn called for the project to be “terminated” until the Senate can conduct a full investigation into the threat it poses to the US military.
Mr. Sun provoked the fury of cattle farmers and politicians alike after he spent an estimated $110 million on 130,000 acres of land in Val Verde County, Texas, between 2016 and 2018.
Former People’s Liberation Army captain Sun Guangxin had planned to build a 46-turbine wind farm in Val Verde County, Texas, before it was blocked on national security grounds.
Sun sold the rights to the wind farm and underlying land to a Spanish company last year, but there are fears it may have retained an ownership interest, with sources citing a deal it struck with a French company that operates the Rocksprings wind farm (pictured) on land it owns, from which it earns royalties.
Texas Senator John Cornyn warned in a letter to the Pentagon that Sun “likely” still has “influence and involvement in the project” and called for an urgent investigation.
This included a 15,000-acre ranch on which he planned to build 46 towering wind turbines, 30 miles from Laughlin Air Force Base.
The project has long raised fears of an espionage plot, with former intelligence officials highlighting Sun’s close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Texas power grid blocked it in 2022 under a state law that prohibits companies controlled by hostile nations from gaining access to critical infrastructure.
This eventually forced Mr Sun, through his US subsidiary GH America, to sell the rights to develop the Blue Hills wind farm to Spanish energy company Greenalia for an estimated $15m in June last year, allowing the project to go ahead.
But in his letter to the Defense Department, Senator Cornyn cites “the belief that the Chinese are still involved” in the project.
“We believe that Mr. Sun financed the purchase of the land with Greenalia and probably has influence and involvement in the project,” he added.
Allowing this to go forward “without fully understanding any current connection with the Chinese is reckless and short-sighted,” he said.
A privately commissioned report written by former intelligence officials in 2019 suggested that Sun’s ties to the CCP could provide Beijing with an opportunity to leverage his business interests for national security goals.
Its close ties to the Chinese state are also documented in the book Eurasian Crossings: A History of Xinjiang, by Georgetown University professor James Millward.
The book claims that Sun opened a CCP branch within his own company during the 1990s and hired a party secretary from a state-owned enterprise to run it.
His political connections helped him acquire state-owned companies, Millward wrote.
DailyMail.com understands that Mr Sun is now looking to offload his entire property empire in Texas following a backlash from locals.
Sun was born into a working-class family in Xinjiang province, but has amassed an estimated net worth of $2.9 billion with the help of his close political and military connections.
Sun’s unprecedented land grab means it owns 7 percent of all land in Val Verde County through its subsidiary companies Brazos Highland and Harvest Texas. The site of its wind farm project is in the northeast of the county, but it already receives royalties from wind turbines operated on its land by a French company in Rocksprings.
Sun purchased more than 130,000 acres of farmland in Texas between 2016 and 2018 for an estimated value of $110 million. Pictured: The gates of its headquarters in the region, Morning Star
Pictured: Sun’s primary residence in Val Verde County, Morning Star Ranch
Senator Cornyn’s intervention comes after GH America sued the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT, the state grid) last month, alleging that its use of state law to block the project was unconstitutional.
In a 21-page complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the firm argued that the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act violated the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The documents argue that “the power to deal with threats to national security” and “regulate foreign trade” falls within the jurisdiction of the federal government.
GH America is seeking an as-yet-undetermined amount in damages and a court declaration that ERCOT’s decision to prevent it from connecting to the state grid is “null and void.”
A company spokesperson told DailyMail.com that Greenalia had “acquired the Blue Hills Project and the underlying land and is not subject to the oversight or control of GHAE or its affiliates.”
“In relation to the alleged ‘threats to US national security’ referenced in Senator Cornyn’s letter, the Blue Hills project was thoroughly reviewed and ultimately approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in 2022,” the spokesperson added.
‘The Project was reviewed and approved by the US Air Force precisely because GH America agreed to mitigate national security concerns arising from the Project’s proximity to Laughlin Air Force Base.
‘There is no factual basis for any of the alleged national security threats posed by the Blue Hills Project or any other projects in which GH America has sought to participate, all of which are subject to ongoing oversight by CFIUS, including the U.S. Department of Defense.’
There is growing fear that Chinese companies will set up shop near US military facilities.
Last year, the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota, vetoed a $700 million corn mill project proposed by China’s Fufeng Group after the U.S. Air Force, which has a base 12 miles away, expressed opposition to the project on national security grounds.
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