BEIJING (Reuters) – China warned on Thursday that it will be forced to respond after the United States ordered the closure of its Houston consulate, a move the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had “severely damaged” relations.
FILE PHOTO: The national flag of China flies at the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, Texas, USA, on July 22, 2020. REUTERS / Adrees Latif
Washington gave China 72 hours to close the consulate “to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information,” marking a dramatic escalation of tension between the world’s two largest economies.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the Houston consulate on Twitter as the “central node of the vast network of spies and influence operations of the Communist Party in the United States.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, at a daily press conference, described the US allegations as “malicious slander.”
“In response to the unreasonable actions of the United States, China must give a necessary response and safeguard its legitimate rights,” he said, and did not specify any measures.
“This is tearing down the friendly bridge between the people of China and the United States,” he added.
The South China Morning Post reported that China may close the US consulate in the city of Chengdu, in southwest China, while a source told Reuters on Wednesday that China was considering closing the US consulate. In Wuhan, where the United States withdrew personnel early in the outbreak coronavirus.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, a tabloid published by the Communist Party official People’s Daily, wrote that closing the Wuhan consulate would be disruptive enough.
Hu said the United States had a large consulate in Hong Kong and that it was “too obvious that the consulate is an intelligence center.”
“Even if China doesn’t shut it down, it could cut its staff to one or two hundred. This will make Washington suffer a lot of pain, ”he wrote.
The other US consulates in China are located in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang.
CHOICE ‘GAMBIT’
Ties between the United States and China have deteriorated sharply this year over issues ranging from the coronavirus and telecommunications equipment maker Huawei to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and its crackdown on Hong Kong.
Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has alleged in US court documents that a Chinese investigator accused of visa fraud and concealing ties to the military was now in hiding at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco.
Other Chinese researchers at US universities have also been arrested for visa fraud, according to documents filed by the US courts.
Wang said China would safeguard its citizens.
“For some time, the United States has maintained an ideological bias to arbitrarily monitor, harass, and even detain Chinese students and academics in the United States,” he said.
“We urge the US to stop using any excuse to restrict, harass, or oppress Chinese students and researchers in the US.”
Chinese state media editorials criticized the United States’ order to close the Houston consulate as an attempt to blame Beijing for US failures ahead of the November presidential election.
Polls show President Donald Trump is following his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, ahead of the Nov. 3 election, as worsening the coronavirus crisis comes at a high cost to the U.S. economy.
The official China Daily described the closure of the consulate as “a new tactic in the attempt by the United States administration to paint China as a malevolent actor on the world stage, and thus make it an outlaw for the international community.”
“The move shows that he lags behind his opponent in the presidential election … the American leader is doing everything possible to portray China as an agent of evil,” he said.
Reports by David Stanway, Tony Munroe and Huizhong Wu; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Michael Perry and Nick Macfie
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