China orders closure of US consulate in Chengdu
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Beijing, July 24: The China government revoked the license of US consulate and ordered to shut down the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu retaliating against US President Donald Trump's decision to shut down the Chinese consulate in Houston. The Chinese government also gave the US consulate 72 hours to close and notified the US side at 10 am on Friday.
The Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday that the Chengdu mission's closure was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China informed the US Embassy in China of its decision to withdraw its consent for the establishment and operation of the US Consulate General in Chengdu.
"The current situation in Chinese-U.S. relations is not what China desires to see. The United States is responsible for all this. We once again urge the United States to immediately retract its wrong decision and create necessary conditions for bringing the bilateral relationship back on track," the ministry said.
BREAKING: #China has ordered the US to close down its Consulate in Chengdu. From MOFA: “The current situation between China and the United States is something China does not want to see, and the responsibility rests solely with the United States.” @NBCNews
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisfrayer) July 24, 2020
The move is called "an equivalent and reciprocal countermeasure" by Chinese. Hours after that decision the Chinese government's broadcaster hosted a live-stream of the consulate’s front gate, China also deployed heavy police force outside the US consulate in Chengdu.
The United States maintains five consulates on the Chinese mainland – in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang, Chengdu, and Wuhan – as well as a consulate general for Hong Kong and Macau. The Chengdu consulate was established in 1985 and has around 200 staff with approximately 150 locally hired Chinese staff. There are some reports that China is also looking to shut the US consulate in Wuhan.
On Wednesday, the State Department ordered China's consulate in Houston to be closed in 72 hours saying they took the action to "protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the move to close the Houston Chinese consulate calling it, "a hub of spying and intellectual property theft" in a fiery speech he delivered at the Nixon Library in California on Thursday.
The Trump administration has also put restrictions on visas for some Chinese journalists and banned Chinese graduate students with ties to military schools. Just hours before China ordered the closure, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech, “If we want to have a free 21st century and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done.”