US-Chinese relations, already tense over the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing's crackdown in Hong Kong, deteriorated once again Wednesday as Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours.

China slammed the US move, which came one day after the unveiling of a US indictment targeting two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide and seeking to steal virus vaccine research.

President Donald Trump threatened more consulate closures, telling reporters "it's always possible."

"We're setting our clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Denmark.

"President Trump has said 'enough,'" Pompeo added.

The secretary of state cited the indictment of the two Chinese nationals for computer hacking but did not specifically mention the order to close the Houston consulate.

The closure of the Chinese diplomatic installation in one of America's biggest cities marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the world's top two economies.

Washington and Beijing are feuding over a slew of issues ranging from trade to the pandemic to China's policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the Houston consulate the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States."

Michael McCaul, Republican Leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed this, saying the consulate was the "epicenter" of efforts to steal "sensitive information to build up their military."

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the consulate was ordered shut "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

The State Department said China has engaged in massive spying and influence operations throughout the United States for years.

"These activities have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years," it said.

- 'Outrageous and unjustified' -

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the order to close the consulate was an "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations."

"China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," Wang said.

The ministry spokesman claimed the United States "opened without permission Chinese diplomatic pouches multiple times, and confiscated Chinese items for official use."

He also said its embassy in Washington had received "bomb and death threats on Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel in the US."

Before the closure order was announced, firefighters and police were called late Tuesday to the consulate building over reports that documents were being burned in trash cans in the courtyard, according to local media.

The Houston police force said smoke was observed, but officers "were not granted access to enter the building."

"Everybody said 'there's a fire, there's a fire,' and I guess they were burning documents or burning papers? And I wonder what that's all about," Trump asked later.

The Chinese consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 -- the first in the year the United States and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website.

The office covers eight southern US states -- including Texas and Florida. There are five Chinese consulates in the United States, as well as the embassy in Washington.

Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times launched a poll on Twitter asking people to vote for which US consulate in China should be closed in response, including the ones in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

The United States has an embassy in Beijing plus five consulates in mainland China and one in Hong Kong.

- 'Significant challenge' -

Trump's administration has ramped up pressure on China on a wide range of issues, imposing sanctions over policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, where an estimated one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are believed to have been rounded up and held in re-education camps.

The United States has also downgraded relations with Hong Kong after China implemented a new security law which Washington says is in violation of Beijing's promises of autonomy for the territory.

Last week, Washington formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the rival territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries.

Washington has also infuriated Beijing by banning equipment made by telecom giant Huawei and seeking the extradition from Canada of top executive Meng Wanzhou.

"We find the China-US relationship today weighed down by a growing number of disputes," deputy secretary of state Stephen Biegun told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

"We are up against a significant challenge in China."

A plethora of US-China disputes
Paris (AFP) July 22, 2020 - The United States and China are at loggerheads over a long list of issues, from the cause of the novel coronavirus to Hong Kong, and trade.

An overview, after Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours, accusing it of being a centre for spies.

- Coronavirus -

Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a war of words over who is to blame for the novel coronavirus, since Trump described it as a "Chinese" virus in March.

China's Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian retorted by suggesting that the US army might have brought the epidemic to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where it first emerged late last year.

The two superpowers then cracked down on each other's news outlets.

In May the foreign ministry pointed to American errors in the handling of the pandemic, while Trump fired back it was "incompetence of China and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing."

- Vaccine hacking -

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in May warned healthcare and scientific researchers that Chinese-backed hackers were attempting to steal research and intellectual property related to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

On July 21, two Chinese nationals were indicted in the US for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide.

- Hong Kong -

Washington reacted to China's imposition of a sweeping new national security law on Hong Kong by ending preferential trade treatment for the former British colony.

It also restricted visas for Chinese officials seen as infringing on the city's autonomy and stopped the export of sensitive technologies.

China pressed ahead with the law in late June.

- Uighurs -

The United States earlier in July froze the assets and imposed visa bans on several officials from China's northwestern region of Xinjiang over rights abuses of its Turkic speaking minority.

It accused the group of "horrific and systematic abuses" in Xinjiang including forced labour, mass detention and involuntary population control.

It then put 11 Chinese companies suspected of taking part in the persecution on a black list, limiting their access to American technologies and products.

Washington says more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking minorities have been rounded up into a network of internment camps.

China contends that the facilities are vocational education centres.

- Trade war -

Weary of its hefty trade deficit with China, Washington declared a trade war in March 2018. It quickly escalated with tit-for-tat punitive duties on hundreds of billions of dollars of bilateral trade.

After truces and resumptions of hostilities, the two superpowers in January 2020 signed an initial accord under which China agreed to buy an extra $200 billion of US imports over two years.

But earlier this month Trump said he does not plan to proceed to the second phase of the accord, as relations with China have been seriously damaged.

- Huawei -

The US has accused Chinese telecoms giant Huawei of spying for Beijing and of rights abuses by allowing the Chinese regime to carry out surveillance of dissidents. It is also accused of installing large scale surveillance technologies in Xinjiang and non respect of the embargo on Iran.

Trump's administration has stepped up sanctions against the worldwide leader in 5G and has pressured allies, such as Britain, to shun the group.

- South China Sea -

On July 2, the US Defense Department criticised Chinese military exercises around the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, in an area also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

Two days later, the Pentagon said two of its own aircraft carriers had carried out drills in the South China Sea to "support a free and open Indo-Pacific".

- Nuclear talks -

In early July Beijing rejected a new US invitation to join arms control talks with Russia.

Trump's administration has demanded that China take part in talks on a successor to the New START treaty, which caps the nuclear warheads of the United States and Russia -- the two Cold War-era superpowers.

Related Links
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com

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