(Reuters) The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston, both countries said on Wednesday, further deteriorating bilateral ties, and a source said Beijing was considering shutting the U.S. consulate in Wuhan in retaliation.
Washington “abruptly demanded” closure of the Houston consulate on Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said. The editor of an official media outlet said China had been given 72 hours to do so.
Beijing condemned the order and threatened retaliation, but did not say what measures it might take.
The State Department confirmed the decision and said the move was made “to protect American intellectual property and American’s private information.”
Speaking on a visit to Denmark, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered no specifics, but repeated accusations about Chinese theft of U.S. and European intellectual property, which he said were costing “hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
“President Trump has said enough – we are not going to allow this to continue to happen,” he told a news conference.
“We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist party is going to behave. And when they don’t, we are going to take action to protect the American people, protect our national security and also protect our economy and jobs.
“That’s the actions that you’re seeing taken by President Trump, we’ll continue to engage in this,” Pompeo said.
Ties between the United States and China have worsened sharply this year over a range of issues, from the novel coronavirus and telecoms gear maker Huawei to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and its imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong.
The deterioration comes in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election, in which President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden have appeared to compete over who can look tougher in response to China.
Late on Tuesday in Houston, local media reported that documents had been burned in a courtyard at the consulate. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate was operating normally, declining to comment further on those reports.
“The United States will not tolerate the PRC’s violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC’s unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement, using an acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
RETALIATION THREAT
It was not immediately clear why China’s Houston consulate had been singled out.
“The unilateral closure of China’s consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing.
“We urge the U.S. to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures.”
Wang said the U.S. government had been harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff for some time and “intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them.”
He said the United States had interfered with China’s diplomatic missions, including intercepting diplomatic pouches and confiscating Chinese items for “official use”. He did not specify whether the actions were related to the Houston consulate.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Chinese charges.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan, where the State Department withdrew staff and their families early this year amid the coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in the central city.
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would shut the consulate.
Last month, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said that the United States would resume operations at the Wuhan consulate soon.
Source: Reuters; Reporting by Cate Cadell and the Beijing newsroom; additional reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard in Copenhagen, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Writing by Huizhong Wu, Tony Munroe and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Louise Heavens, Robert Birsel and Bernadette Baum
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