AMN / WEB DESK
China on Friday ordered the United States to close its consulate in the western city of Chengdu, in retaliation for the closure of China’s Houston consulate earlier this week.
The move is a “legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The current situation in China-US relations is not what China desires to see, and the US is responsible for all this,” the statement said.
The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered the Houston consulate closed within 72 hours, alleging that Chinese agents tried to steal data from facilities in Texas including the Texas A&M medical system.
The US cited Chinese theft of intellectual property, which came a day after the Justice Department unveiled the indictment of two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies and attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research.
“The US move seriously breached international law, the basic norms of international relations, and the terms of the China-US Consular Convention. It gravely harmed China-US relations,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
On Thursday, the US Justice Department said it believes the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco is harboring a Chinese researcher, Tang Juan, who is accused of lying about her background in the Communist Party’s military wing on a visa application.