The U.S. Consulate in Chengdu is represented on July 23, 2020 in Chengdu, Sichuan province of China.
VCG | Visual China Group | fake pictures
WASHINGTON – Senior U.S. officials will not address on Friday whether the Trump administration intends to comply with an order to close a U.S. consulate in China, a move that comes immediately after Washington’s forced closure of a Chinese consulate in Houston.
On Friday morning, the Chinese Foreign Ministry ordered the United States Embassy in Beijing to cease operations at its consulate in Chengdu, a city in southwest China’s Sichuan province.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said part of Chengdu consulate staff in the United States was “carrying out activities that were not in line with their identities” and had harmed China’s security interests, but gave no further details.
“The current situation in China-US relations. It is not what China wants to see and the US is responsible for all this. Once again, we urge the US to immediately retract its wrong decision. and create the necessary conditions to get the bilateral relationship back on track, “he added.
Earlier in the week, the Trump administration ordered China to close its consulate in Houston. Authorities said the decision to close the Chinese Consulate was made to secure the intellectual property of the United States and curb Chinese espionage.
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the United States’ decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston as “serious” and a reflection of “long-standing concerns.” The person also said that the Trump administration would be prepared to deal with the second and third order effects following this decision, but did not elaborate.
“In your decision to close Chengdu, you will have to ask them, the MFA, how they chose that,” the official said. The same official said the State Department would continue to send US diplomats to China saying, “We still have a job to do.”
Meanwhile, Beijing has not publicly agreed to evacuate its consulate in Houston. When asked how the United States might respond, the State Department official said, “I am not going to speculate on how this is unfolding in Houston.”
The latest revelation comes when the Justice Department charged four Chinese citizens with visa fraud in California and Indiana after they allegedly lied about their Chinese military service.
The arrests were described as “a microcosm of a broader network of people in more than 25 cities,” said a senior Justice Department official.
“By their very nature, consulates are a base of operations for foreign governments in the United States, including their intelligence services, and it is understood that those services will have some activity here,” the person said.
“But because of their location within the United States and their status as the sovereign territory of a foreign country, they can be exploited, and the espionage and influence activities carried out in a consulate may ultimately increase to a level that threatens our national security. ” added the official.
.
