Measure was retaliation for the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston
China on Monday occupied the premises of the building where the United States consulate was located in Chengdu, a city in the southwest of the country, after determining that the facility should be vacated. The move was retaliation for the closing of his consulate in Houston, Texas, last week.
The confiscation is the result of a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two largest economies in the world, which began when officials at the Chinese consulate in Houston were seen burning documents in a courtyard last Tuesday (21), hours before Beijing announced there were ordered to empty the facility.
The US consulate in Chengdu, located in Sichuan province, was closed at 10 am on Monday, and Chinese officials entered the building through the front door, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
On Friday, Beijing announced that it had ordered the United States to close its Chengdu post and given the Americans 72 hours to leave, the same deadline given to China to release the Houston mission, which closed that day.
“We are disappointed with the decision of the Chinese Communist Party and will endeavor to continue to seek contact with the people of this important region, through our other posts in China,” said a US State Department spokesman in an email. to Reuters.
At midnight on Monday, police removed a street block that had been restricting access to the Chengdu facility. Dozens of people stopped to photograph and film.
A man stopped across the street and played the Chinese national anthem on his cell phone.
“We feel very sad that the relationship between China and the US has broken off,” said a man with the surname Li, before the mission.
Material similar to a gray sheet was installed near the site, close to the entrance where a sign had been attached and over the place where it read on a large sign “Consulate General of the USA”.
The US embassy released a video in Chinese on its Twitter account, saying: “The US consulate proudly promotes mutual understanding between Americans and the people of Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan and Tibet since 1985. We will miss you. forever”.
The US flag was no longer hoisted at the consulate, having been downloaded at 6:18 am today, according to a video made by a journalist and shared by the state broadcaster CCTV, on his Weibo account, a platform similar to Twitter.
Ties between the two countries are at their worst in decades because of issues such as trade, technology, the covid-19 pandemic, Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea and the crackdown on Hong Kong.
