A series of black SUVs, trucks, two white trucks, and a locksmith van entered the property as crowds of observers and news cameras watched from the edge of the diplomatic complex.
US officials who spoke to journalists on Friday said the consulate had been implicated in a fraud investigation at a Texas investigative institution and that Chinese consulate officials “were directly involved in communications with investigators and guided them on what information collect. “
The activities of consulate officials in Houston “are a microcosm, we believe, of a broader network of people in more than 25 cities that the network is supported by consulates here,” a Justice Department official said Friday. from the United States. “Consulates have been giving guidance to individuals in that network on how to evade [and] obstruct our investigation. And you can infer from that the task capacity that [a] partner network nationwide. “
The United States gave China approximately 72 hours to “cease all operations and events” at the Houston facility on Tuesday, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which called the move an “unprecedented escalation” amid the ongoing tension between the two countries.
Relations between China and the United States have plummeted in the past year, amid an ongoing trade war, the coronavirus pandemic, and criticism by the United States of China’s human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Washington’s demand for the closure of the Houston consulate set the stage for federal agents to enter the diplomatic complex on Friday afternoon. It also sparked a Chinese demand the previous Friday that the United States close its consulate in Chengdu.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Houston police said they responded to reports of smoke in the courtyard outside the consulate, located on Montrose Boulevard in the city’s Midtown area. Local media shared videos of what appeared to be officials inside the document-burning complex.
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday that the consulate was ordered to close “to protect American intellectual property and the private information of Americans.”
The idea of closing the Houston consulate came this spring after China interfered when US officials returned to the consulate in Wuhan to retrieve diplomatic materials, according to a senior State Department official.
Chinese authorities refused to let US officials leave Wuhan with the bags, saying they had to search them before leaving, an aggressive move that violates the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations. The meeting left Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outraged, the State Department official said.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
.
