Beijing : US move to close the Houston consulate is a “political provocation”

Beijing will make a legitimate and necessary response if Washington does not revoke its wrong decision on the closure of China’s consulate-general in Houston, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday, calling the move a provocation unilaterally initiated by the United States against China.

“China strongly condemns this outrageous and unjustified move to sabotage China-US relations,” Wang said.

The spokesman confirmed at a regular media briefing in Beijing that the US abruptly told China on Tuesday to close its consulate-general in Houston, which Wang said violated international law, basic norms governing international relations and relevant stipulations of a bilateral consular agreement.

After China became a party to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations in 1979, China and the US reached an agreement on the mutual establishment of consular relations and the opening of consulates-general. The consulate-general in Houston is one of two which opened that year.

According to Wang, the unilateral closure of the consulate-general in Houston within a short time is an unprecedented escalation of Washington’s recent actions against China, and the US campaign of shifting blame and discrediting China had been going on for quite some time.

The US side has been attacking China’s political system, harassing Chinese diplomatic staff in the US for no reason, intimidating and interrogating Chinese students in the US, and sometimes even seizing their electronic equipment or detaining them for no good reason, he said.

“Quite surprised”

The Chinese Consul General of Houston says he was shocked to learn on Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. State Department is forcing the closure of the Houston Chinese Consulate on Friday.

“Quite surprised,” said Consul General Cai Wei, who gave ABC13 an exclusive interview inside the soon-to-shutter building in Montrose. “I never expected [to be] treated like this, and we are coming for friendship, and for mutual understanding between China and the United States.”

When asked about the widespread reporting that the Chinese Consulate was being closed because the State Department is concerned with economic espionage, or spying of U.S. business secrets, Cai stopped short of calling the accusations lies.

“Whether you are a top diplomat, or a very junior diplomat, the first lesson is you have to speak the truth, you have to speak with facts,” said Cai. “I know [Americans] call that the rule of law and you have that you are not guilty until you’re proven [guilty]… where’s the proof?”

Compiled by: Basma Qaddour