US demands closure of Chinese consulate in Houston, gives CCP three days vacate

The US has demanded that China close their consulate in Houston over intellectual privacy concerns, and has given them three days to do it. In response, China has promised to retaliate, according to Bloomberg.

The State Department moved forward with the decision in an effort to "protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

"We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a Wednesday briefing in Denmark, "and when they don't we're going to take actions that protect the American people."

Wang Wenbin, CCP Foreign Ministry spokesman, responded to the announcement by saying China would react with "firm countermeasures" if the US government did not walk back its intention in closing down the consulate, Bloomberg reported.

Those living near the consulate became curious when they noticed that a fire had been started in the courtyard of the Houston consulate, which was caused by "reports and papers... being burned outside in open containers," Bloomberg stated.

"This video shared with us by a viewer who lives next to the Consulate General of China in #Houston shows fire and activity in the courtyard of the building..." shared a senior digital editor and enterprise reporter @KPRC2.

Mira Rapp-Hoop, a fellow of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that it was strange a consulate was to be closed within just three days of the announcement, adding that this notice could be the "result only of major infractions by that country and certainly signals a level of diplomatic rancor that is quite intense."

Bloomberg reported that the shuttering of a consulate is not a common occurrence, saying that "the US ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco in September 2017, allowing the country to relocate staff based there to other diplomatic outposts in the US," and that the move was primarily motivated by a "tit-for-tat" situation with Moscow over "tougher sanctions passed by Congress."

The US has gone head to head with China over a number of things that include the reason for the COVID-19 outbreak, trade, and the use of 5G networks.

Li Mingjiang, an associate professor with the Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said that the closure is highly unusual and that this sort of thing "often happens when relations between two countries are really, really negative." Mingjiang added that one option for China to respond with would be the shuttering of the "US consulate in Hong Kong."

Senator Marco Rubio, an Intelligence Committee member, stated that Houston was a "central node" of China's espionage activities, though he did not provide any more details.