Tensions between the United States and China have reached high levels after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States will consider China with a new “mistrust and verification” strategy and China accused the United States of thinking backward.
“The current situation in China-US relations is not what China wants to see, and the United States is responsible for all of this,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in response to the closure of the states on Friday. United from the Chinese consulate in Houston.
“Once again, we urge the United States to immediately retract its wrong decision and create the necessary conditions to get the bilateral relationship back on track,” he added.
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The Trump administration’s decision to close the consulate came after reports of burned files emerged in the consulate yard earlier this week. Houston police and firefighters responded to reports of smoke leaving the yard and visible trash cans on fire, but were not allowed to enter the facility due to jurisdictional rights.
The State Department responded by giving the consulate three days to cease operations and vacate the facilities.
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told Fox News that the decision to close the consulate was “to protect American intellectual property and the private information of Americans.”
Pompeo then delivered a scathing speech at the Nixon Library on Thursday, calling the Houston consulate a “hub for espionage and theft of intellectual property,” adding that the relationship between China and the United States had changed dramatically since President Nixon’s trip. to China in 1972, which marked a shift towards a harmonious relationship between the two countries.
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“The old paradigm of blind engagement with China just won’t do it,” Pompeo said. “We must not continue it. We shouldn’t go back to that. “
“President Reagan dealt with the Soviets on the basis of” trust but verify. “When it comes to the CCP [Communist Party of China]I say, “be wary and verify,” Pompeo said, which means a change in the relationship.
“China noted that Pompeo chose the Richard Nixon Presidential Library as the place to deliver his speech,” Wenbin said during the press conference on Friday.
“On the United States side, President Richard Nixon began the process of normalizing relations between China and the United States, a contributor to the development of bilateral relations,” said the spokesman. “However, for those American politicians who have been making and spreading lies and rumors against China, history is a fair judge.”
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Nixon’s visit in 1972 was the first presidential visit to the United States since the Communist Party took over the government in 1949.
“We urge the US government. To discard its cold war mentality and ideological bias, see China-China-US relations. In a fair way, refrain from negative words and deeds, and create conditions to return to direct the bilateral relationship, “Wenbin said Friday.
The Chinese government closed a U.S. consulate in Chengdu, China on Friday, likely in retaliation for the Houston consulate shutdown.
