BEIJING – In retaliation for the Trump administration’s order to close the Chinese consulate in Houston, China announced on Friday that it had ordered the United States to close its consulate in the city of Chengdu, in southwest China.
The eye-for-eye consulate closings were another twist in the deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, perhaps the most serious yet. Previous moves by both sides have included visa restrictions, new travel rules for diplomats, and the expulsion of foreign correspondents. However, as diplomatic missions close, the two countries seem to move inexorably toward a deeper divide.
The Foreign Ministry announcement in Beijing came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech summarizing the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive stance toward China in virtually every aspect of the relationship, from trade. even technology.
“We must admit a harsh truth that should guide us in the years and decades to come, that if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century that Xi Jinping dreams of, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply will not.” Pompeo said Thursday, “We must not continue it and we must not return to it.”
He spoke in California at the library of President Richard M. Nixon, whose visit to China in 1972 launched a new era of relations that, he said, China exploited to the disadvantage of the United States. His reference to the closure of the consulate in Houston was met with a round of applause.
Chinese officials have reacted angrily to the administration’s moves, accusing Pompeo and others of adopting a Cold War mindset. They have denied or downplayed many of the allegations, including that the consulate in Houston was a center of illegal activity.
Beijing’s order to close the US Consulate in Chengdu, the westernmost of the five US consulates in mainland China, deprives the United States of its most valuable diplomatic post to gather information on Xinjiang and Tibet, the two sometimes restless regions in the far west of China.
Both regions have been places of far-reaching security crackdowns that have generated international criticism for human rights abuses. Chinese officials insist they have respected international standards.
In a tweet on Friday, Hua Chunying, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, strongly criticized Pompeo’s comments. The secretary of state is “launching a new crusade against China in a globalized world,” he wrote. “What he is doing is as useless as an ant trying to shake a tree.”
Administration officials this week accused Chinese diplomats in Houston of aiding economic espionage and attempted theft of scientific investigations in numerous cases across the United States. Intelligence agents from all countries operate from their embassies and consulates, but with their actions, the administration accuses the Chinese of going too far, violating American law by lying about their identities to operate undercover.
A summary of law enforcement activities against the Chinese in the United States, provided by Washington officials to the New York Times, outlined a network of covert activities by the consulate to recruit investigators and others to gather technology and research, including in various from The Best Medical Centers in the Greater Houston Region.
He also detailed a series of FBI investigations across the country, revealing that the office had conducted interrogations in 25 states of people believed to be members of the Chinese army, the People’s Liberation Army, sent to study or conduct research at universities. without disclosing your affiliation.
The document said that four of them had been charged and three arrested. One, identified as Tang Juan, studied at the University of California, Davis, and fled to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco to escape arrest, according to the document. That has created another diplomatic crisis to untangle.
China’s decision was expected. China had warned earlier this week that it would retaliate in kind. At the same time, the government appears to have little appetite for escalation.
The immediate effect of closing the two consulates is expected to be minimal in the short term, especially since the visas they normally process have become debatable at a time when travel has been severely limited by the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the difficulties for China closing the American consulates is that many Chinese families need them. The United States consulates in China issued 1.26 million visas in the last fiscal year.
The city of Chengdu, in the Sichuan province, has also become a hub for China’s expansion through the vast deserts and steppes of Central Asia, through the Belt and Road Initiative initiated by China’s top leader. , Xi Jinping. Chengdu freight trains have transported consumer electronics and other goods across Asia and Eastern Europe to Western European markets for seven years.
Chengdu is also the closest American consulate to Chongqing, a major metropolis and manufacturing center. Chongqing has periodically been a center of Chinese political intrigue, especially in 2012, when its leader, Bo Xilai, and his wife were arrested and later convicted of a variety of crimes.
Mr. Bo’s police chief in Chongqing, Wang Lijun, fled to the United States Consulate in Chengdu and took refuge there in 2012 when it became clear that Mr. Bo would be detained. Subsequently, the Obama administration released Mr. Wang to the Chinese authorities after determining that he was not eligible for asylum.
Keith Bradsher reported from Beijing, and Steven Lee Myers from Seoul, South Korea.
