WASHINGTON: The Trump administration closed its consulate in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu on Monday, reducing America’s diplomatic footprint in the world’s second-largest economy as relations between Washington and Beijing hit a boiling point. The US Consulate in Chengdu opened 35 years ago and up until Monday employed 200 people, of which 50 were US diplomats and 150 were local hires, according to the consulate website.
US Marines lowered the American flag that once flew over the consulate and a covering was placed over the plaque marking its entrance as the US diplomatic staff left its mission in compliance with a Chinese order. The US now has five remaining consulates in Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenyang and Hong Kong-Macau as well as its embassy in Beijing.
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have plunged to their worst point in years over a variety of issues, ranging from trade and cybersecurity to the Covid-19 pandemic, to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and its growing clampdown on Hong Kong’s autonomy.
Earlier, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs directed the US Embassy in Beijing to cease operations at its consulate in Chengdu, a city in southwest China’s Sichuan province in retaliation to US asking Beijing to close its consulate in Houston. Officials said the decision to shut down the Chinese Consulate was made to secure US intellectual property and curb Chinese espionage.
A senior State Department official described the US decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston as “serious” and reflective of “long-standing concerns.” The person also said that the Trump administration would be prepared to deal with second- and third-order effects in the wake of this decision but would not elaborate.
In another sign of increasingly frayed ties between the US and China, the Department of Justice charged four Chinese nationals earlier this month with visa fraud in California and Indiana after they allegedly lied about their Chinese military service.
