Thu 23 July 2020:
Diplomatic tensions between the US and China have escalated sharply with the Trump administration’s closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston to protect “American intellectual property and private information”.
“China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move, which will sabotage China-US relations,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news briefing on Wednesday. “We urge the US to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision, otherwise China will make legitimate and necessary reactions.”
US President Donald Trump has indicated that it was “always possible” he would order the closure of more Chinese consulates in the United States, after the US gave Beijing 72 hours to shut its consulate in Houston further souring ties between the two countries.
Trump, at a White House news conference, noted that a fire had been spotted on the Houston consulate’s grounds after the Department of State ordered the closure.
“I guess they were burning documents and burning papers,” he said.
China has condemned the closure as “an unprecedented escalation” that would sabotage relations between the two countries.
The South China Morning Post has reported that Beijing could retaliate by shutting down the US consulate in the Chinese city of Chengdu.
On Thursday, Chinese state media angrily reacted to the move as an attempt to blame Beijing for American failures ahead of presidential elections in November.
Washington’s order comes as the two countries clash on a wide range of issues, from trade to the coronavirus pandemic and China’s policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.
“Shutting down a major Chinese consulate and evicting its diplomats is a dramatic and unprecedented move that will prompt some form of retaliation by Beijing,” said Daniel Russel, Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute and an Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the administration of former US President Barack Obama.
“This further reduces the few remaining diplomatic channels between the two sides and is a step that will prove difficult to reverse.”
There are five Chinese consulates in the US, as well as an embassy in Washington. The Chinese consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 – the first in the year the US and the People’s Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website.
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