US gives China 72 hours to shut Houston consulate as spying charges mount
The United States gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston amid accusations of spying, marking a dramatic deterioration in relations between the world's two biggest economies.
China's foreign ministry called the move an "unprecedented escalation" and threatened unspecified retaliation. Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the Chinese Embassy in the United States had received "bomb and death threats" because of "smears & hatred" fanned by Washington.
"The US should revoke its erroneous decision," she tweeted. "China will surely react with firm countermeasures."
Communist Party rulers in Beijing were considering shutting the US consulate in the central city of Wuhan in retaliation, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
The State Department said the Chinese mission in Houston was closed "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information".
The move comes in the run-up to the November US presidential election, in which President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, have both tried to look tough in response to China.
Speaking on a visit to Denmark, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated accusations about Chinese theft of US and European intellectual property, which he said were costing "hundreds of thousands of jobs."
While offering no specifics about the Houston consulate, Pompeo referred to a US Justice Department indictment on Tuesday of two Chinese nationals over what it called a decade-long cyber espionage campaign that targeted defense contractors, Covid researchers and hundreds of other victims worldwide.
"President Trump has said: 'Enough. We are not going to allow this to continue to happen,'" Pompeo told reporters. "That's the actions that you're seeing taken by President Trump, we'll continue to engage in this."
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the Houston consulate on Twitter as the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States".
