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China shuts down US mission in Chengdu city, US flag lowered at dawn
The shutting of US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu will now make it more difficult for the US to monitor the situation in TAR where the entry of diplomats and foreign journalists is banned.
The US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu officially shut down on Monday morning within 72 hours of Beijing ordering its closure as a tit-for-tat shutting of its Houston consulate amid worsening ties between the two largest economies of the world.
The US flag at the consulate was lowered at dawn, a video published by the national broadcaster CCTV showed.
A large number of police personnel were deployed around the mission with the roads leading to it cordoned off.
The Chinese foreign ministry announced the closure of the mission in a short statement, saying the Chengdu consulate had closed at 10 am.
“China’s competent authorities then entered through the front entrance and took over the premises,” the ministry said in the statement in English published on its website and circulated among the media through social media.
The shutting of the US Chengdu consulate was in retaliation against Washington’s unexpected closure of China’s consulate in Houston, Texas, claiming the mission had been involved in espionage efforts.
Announcing the closure of the Chengdu mission on Friday, China had given the Americans the same timeframe of 72 hours to shut it down as Beijing had been given in Houston, where last Tuesday, Washington told a livid China to “cease all operations and events”.
The US’s Chengdu consulate was the nearest to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
The shutting of it will now make it more difficult for the US to monitor the situation in TAR where the entry of diplomats and foreign journalists is banned.
Opened in 1985, the US Chengdu consular district’s jurisdiction, according to the consulate website is “…made up of the Provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, as well as the Tibet Autonomous Region and Chongqing City Municipality.”
On Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry had expressed “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to US law enforcement officers’ forced entry into the Chinese consulate general in Houston.
US law enforcement officers on Friday forcibly entered the premises of the Chinese consulate general in Houston, the official news agency, Xinhua had reported.
In response, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the premises of the Chinese consulate general in Houston are diplomatic and consular premises as well as China’s national property.
Last week, Beijing had called the US’s decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston an “unprecedented escalation” in Washington’s recent actions against China and warned of “legitimate and necessary” response against the decision.
The tit-for-tat closing of consulates is sure to further sour the rapidly deteriorating bilateral ties with the two countries already at loggerheads over South China Sea disputes, the Hong Kong security bill, US arms-sales to Taiwan, the condition of minorities in Xinjiang, and the origin of the coronavirus besides an ongoing trade war.
