U.S. orders China to close down its Houston consulate

BEIJING — The U.S. has abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston in what Beijing warned was “an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-U.S. relations” and prompt it to retaliate.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin confirmed at a news briefing in Beijing that the U.S. had demanded Tuesday that the Chinese Consulate in Houston cease operations and evacuate all personnel by Friday. Wang did not state what reason the U.S. had given for the consulate’s closure.

The State Department said in a brief statement that the shutdown order was given “to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information.” The statement did not elaborate on the issue.

“President Trump has said, ‘Enough, we’re not going to allow this to continue to happen,’” Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said at a brief news conference Wednesday in Copenhagen. “We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they don’t, we’re going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our national security and also protect our economy and jobs.”

Closure of a diplomatic mission would represent a significant escalation in the accelerating breakdown of relations between Washington and Beijing. A trade war has already engulfed the world’s two biggest economies, and the Trump administration’s accusations of Chinese mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak have further strained relations.

The two countries have imposed restrictions on each others’ journalists, expelling many of them, and the U.S. has restricted visas for Chinese graduate students with ties to entities deemed to be seeking to acquire foreign technology for Chinese military purposes.

Wang called the consulate closure an “unprecedented escalation” of U.S. actions against China. He said Chinese diplomatic personnel had been twice restricted in the U.S., without specifying how, in June this year and October last year.

He said the U.S. had opened and confiscated items from Chinese diplomatic pouches, and that the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. had received bomb and death threats to its personnel “as the U.S. flagrantly drives stigmatization and fans hatred against China.”

Wang also accused U.S. Embassy personnel in China of engaging in “infiltration and interference activities.”