The United States has asked China to close its consulate in Houston, both countries confirmed yesterday, further damaging already strained relations, and one source told Reuters that Beijing is considering closing the American consulate in Wuhan in response.
Washington "suddenly requested" the closure of the consulate on Tuesday, China's foreign ministry said. Chinese media reported that China was given 72 hours to close the representative office.
Beijing condemned the move as "unprecedented" and an "outrageous escalation" and threatened to retaliate, but did not specify what measures they might take. The US State Department confirmed the decision and said it was made to "protect US intellectual property and private information about Americans".
Speaking during a visit to Denmark, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not elaborate but repeated accusations against China of stealing US and European intellectual property, which he said cost "hundreds of thousands of jobs". "President Donald Trump has said enough - we will not allow it to happen again," he said at a press conference.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio said that the consulate in Houston was "the center of a massive espionage operation".
The New York Times quoted the top US diplomat for East Asia, David Stilwell, as saying that the consulate in Houston was the "epicenter" of the Chinese military's efforts to improve its capabilities by sending students to US universities. "We took a practical step to prevent them from doing that," Stilwell told The Times. He said that the consul in Houston and two other diplomats were recently caught in questionable activities at the Houston airport while they were waiting for the departure of a charter flight to China organized by Beijing due to travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Relations between the US and China have been severely strained this year over a range of issues, from the coronavirus to Huawei to China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and the imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong.
The deterioration of relations is happening ahead of the US presidential elections in November, where, as Reuters writes, it seems as if Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden are competing to take a tougher stance towards China. Late Tuesday night in Houston, local media reported that documents were being burned in the consulate's courtyard. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Weng Wenbin said the consulate was operating normally, declining to comment on the allegations.
"The United States will not tolerate China's violation of our sovereignty, intimidation of our citizens, just as it will not tolerate China's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs and other inappropriate behavior," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.
Beijing has called on the US to immediately withdraw its decision to close the consulate, because otherwise China will react with countermeasures.
Wenbin said that the US government has been harassing Chinese diplomats and consulate employees for some time and that it "intimidates and interrogates Chinese students by confiscating their personal electronic devices and even detaining them."
He said that the US was interfering with the work of Chinese diplomatic missions, including intercepting diplomatic shipments and seizing Chinese items for "official use". He did not specify whether these activities refer to the consulate in Houston.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that China is considering closing the US consulate in Wuhan, where the State Department pulled staff earlier this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Last month, the US Embassy in Beijing announced that the US would soon resume operations in Wuhan.
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