The Global Daily Watch
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World
US hits China anew for rights abuses in western Xinjiang
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration took new aim at China on Friday by imposing sanctions on a major paramilitary organization in the country’s western Xinjiang region and its commander for alleged human rights abuses against ethnic and religious minorities.
The State and Treasury departments announced the penalties as the White House denounced authorities in Hong Kong for postponing local government elections ostensibly because of the coronavirus pandemic. Criticism of the election delay, which Beijing approved, also came just a day after President Donald Trump suggested putting off November’s U.S. presidential vote.
The sanctions, which freeze any assets the targets may have in U.S. jurisdictions and perhaps more significantly bar Americans from doing business with them, hit the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, its commander and former political commissar for alleged abuses against Uighur Muslims, including mass arbitrary detentions, forced labor and torture.
The production and construction corps is a major operation consisting of 14 military-style divisions that reports to the Chinese Communist Party and is in charge of billions of dollars in development projects in Xinjiang, including mining and energy exploration.
"The United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. The sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, which provides authority for the administration to penalize human rights abusers abroad.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the two officials targeted — the commander, Peng Jiarui, and the former commissar, Sun Jinlong — would also be subject to U.S. visa restrictions. The Trump administration has previously sanctioned other officials in Xinjiang subjecting them to travel bans.
Meanwhile, the White House lashed out at the postponement of the upcoming Hong Kong elections in comments likely to draw accusations of hypocrisy from China after Trump's tweeted suggestion on Thursday that the U.S. elections be postponed to prevent fraud from mail-in ballots expected to flood the polls because of the virus outbreak.
“We condemn the Hong Kong government’s decision to postpone for one year its legislative council elections and to disqualify opposition candidates,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. “This action undermines the democratic processes and freedoms that have underpinned Hong Kong’s prosperity and this is only the most recent in a growing list of broken promises by Beijing."
Earlier Friday, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced the government was invoking an emergency ordinance to postpone the highly anticipated legislative elections by a year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak.
The postponement is a setback for the pro-democracy opposition, which was hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains. A group of 22 lawmakers issued a statement ahead of the announcement accusing the government of using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the vote.
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World
US ramps up sanctions over Uighur abuses with penalties on powerful Chinese paramilitary group
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https://www.yahoo.com/gma/us-ramps-sanctions-over-uighur-abuses-penalties-powerful-213900963.html
The U.S. has sanctioned a powerful Chinese paramilitary organization in the country's western province, accusing it of playing a key role in the detention and repression of Muslim ethnic minorities.
The sanctions could have far-reaching consequences, depending on their level of enforcement, given the deep economic and political control of the group, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, in the Xinjiang region.
This round of penalties is also the second in just three weeks after President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he had withheld them for over a year to protect trade talks with China. In recent weeks, his administration has bolted toward an increasingly tough stance against Beijing as the Phase 1 trade deal all but fell apart and the 2020 presidential election approaches.
MORE: US sanctions Chinese officials over Uighur abuses, warns companies against business in region
On July 9, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned regional officials and a security agency for the repressive campaign against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities that includes detaining over 1 million in "re-education" and forced labor camps, cracking down on practicing Islam and enforcing widespread sterilization practices. China at first denied such camps existed, then defended them as a counterterror operation; its foreign ministry has denied mass sterilization.
"The Chinese Communist Party's human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities rank as the stain of the century," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday.
In addition to the XPCC, the Treasury Department is sanctioning the organization's commander Peng Jiarui and a former senior official Sun Jinlong.
MORE: China conducting mass sterilization on Muslim minorities that could amount to genocide: Report
The latest actions mark a profound escalation in U.S. pressure. Described as a "paramilitary organization" or a "farming militia," the XPCC is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party first deployed in the 1950s to send soldiers as pioneers or colonizers to Xinjiang, a largely undeveloped region nearly 2,000 miles west of Beijing.
After years of developing farmland, mining, and other industries, the XPCC now controls huge portions of the region's economy, as well as critical security functions. Analysts have reported that the XPCC alone employs approximately 12% of the region's population and accounts for 20% of the region's total economy, with even larger shares of agriculture.
Pompeo accused the XPCC of being "directly involved in implementing" what he called "a comprehensive surveillance, detention, and indoctrination program" against Uighurs and other minorities.
It's unclear if the XPCC has any assets in U.S. jurisdiction. But this now puts any company, including American ones, at risk of U.S. sanctions if they work in the region or have a supply chain with ties to it, according to the U.S. Treasury, although teasing out those ties can be difficult given how murky business in China can be.
MORE: After 13 tons of human hair products seized, US warns about importing from Xinjiang, China
"All US companies (and foreign companies that do business in the US) should be getting out of Xinjiang now (if they haven't already)," tweeted Julian Ku, a professor at Hofstra University Law School.
Major U.S. companies like Apple and Ralph Lauren are already struggling with their commercial ties to Xinjiang after the U.S. Commerce Department added to its list of blocked entities based in the region and several agencies issued a joint warning of "legal risks" if companies' supply chains include the forced labor used in these internment camps.
On Capitol Hill Thursday, Pompeo said the administration hopes to use these economic levers to change the Chinese government's behavior.
"I'm really happy with the work we're making to convince businesses -- not just American business because it's an international place of business -- that they should really look hard at their supply chains -- not just their direct employees, but their supply chains -- and what's taking place there. I think if we get that right, we have the opportunity to change what's taking place there," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
MORE: Bolton dismisses Trump's tough talk on China: 'No telling' what deal he'd take if reelected
Unleashing economic pressure on China for the treatment of Uighurs is one of several moves by the Trump administration to escalate its fight with Beijing, including a declaration against its claims in the South China Sea, a new round of arms sales to Taiwan, ending Hong Kong's special economic status because of the crackdown on democracy and a crippling campaign against Huawei, the telecommunications giant.
China is likely to retaliate after Friday's sanctions, although its ability to do so may be more limited. After the first round of sanctions this month, it announced visa bans on U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom Sam Brownback, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. -- four Republicans who have been outspoken on the Uighur detention camps.
US ramps up sanctions over Uighur abuses with penalties on powerful Chinese paramilitary group originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
U.S.
Chinese scientist charged with visa fraud appears in court
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Chinese scientist charged with visa fraud after authorities said she concealed her military ties to China in order to work in the U.S. made her first appearance Monday in federal court by video.
Juan Tang, 37, was appointed a federal public defender and U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Barnes ordered Tang to remain in custody, saying she is a flight risk, while her attorney prepares an argument to allow her release on bail.
The Justice Department last week announced charges against Tang and three other scientists living in the U.S., saying they lied about their status as members of China’s People’s Liberation Army. All were charged with visa fraud.
Prosecutors said Tang lied about her military ties in a visa application last October as she prepared to work at the University of California, Davis and again during an FBI interview in June. Agents found photos of Tang dressed in military uniform and reviewed articles in China identifying her military affiliation, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Tang sought refuge at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco after speaking with agents in June. U.S. marshals arrested her Friday and booked her into Sacramento County Jail, where she remains.
Heather Williams, a federal defender, said its common practice for people to seek help from their consulate when dealing with law enforcement abroad, and doing so did not make Tang guilty of anything, she said..
Williams added that U.S. agents took Tang's passport, forcing her young daughter to travel to China alone.
It's too soon to know what the photos of Tang mean, and she might have made a mistake on the visa application, the lawyer said.
“We do know that our government seems to be increasingly hostile to China and we hope Dr. Tang isn’t paying the price for that hostility," she said.
The University of California, Davis said Tang left her job in June as a visiting researcher in the Department of Radiation Oncology.
The arrests come as tensions rise between China and the U.S.
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World
Escalating tensions could lead to US-China military clash: Gordon Chang
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World
How a Chinese agent used LinkedIn to hunt for targets
Jun Wei Yeo, an ambitious and freshly enrolled Singaporean PhD student, was no doubt delighted when he was invited to give a presentation to Chinese academics in Beijing in 2015.
His doctorate research was about Chinese foreign policy and he was about to discover firsthand how the rising superpower seeks to attain influence.
After his presentation, Jun Wei, also known as Dickson, was, according to US court documents, approached by several people who said they worked for Chinese think tanks. They said they wanted to pay him to provide "political reports and information". They would later specify exactly what they wanted: "scuttlebutt" - rumours and insider knowledge.
He soon realised they were Chinese intelligence agents but remained in contact with them, a sworn statement says. He was first asked to focus on countries in South East Asia but later, their interest turned to the US government.
That was how Dickson Yeo set off on a path to becoming a Chinese agent - one who would end up using the professional networking website LinkedIn, a fake consulting company and cover as a curious academic to lure in American targets.
Five years later, on Friday, amid deep tensions between the US and China and a determined crackdown from Washington on Beijing's spies, Yeo pleaded guilty in a US court to being an "illegal agent of a foreign power". The 39-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison.
Alumni at Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), which trains some of Asia's top civil servants and government officials, were left shocked by the news that their former peer had confessed to being a Chinese agent.
"He was a very active student in class. I always viewed him as a very intelligent person," said one former postgraduate student who did not wish to be named
She said he often talked about social inequality - and that his family struggled financially when he was a child. She said she found it difficult to reconcile the person she knew with his guilty plea.
A former member of staff at the institution painted a different picture, saying Yeo seemed to have "an inflated sense of his own importance".
Yeo's PhD supervisor had been Huang Jing, a high-profile Chinese-American professor who was expelled from Singapore in 2017 for being an "agent of influence of a foreign country" that was not identified.
Huang Jing always denied those allegations. After leaving Singapore, he first worked in Washington DC, and now Beijing.
According to the court documents released with Yeo's guilty plea, the student met his Chinese handlers on dozens of occasions in different locations in China.
During one meeting he was asked to specifically obtain information about the US Department of Commerce, artificial intelligence and the Sino-US trade war.
Bilahari Kausikan, the former permanent secretary at Singapore's foreign ministry, said he had "no doubt that Dickson knew he was working for the Chinese intelligence services".
He was not, he said, "an unwitting useful fool".
Yeo made his crucial contacts using LinkedIn, the job and careers networking site used by more than 700 million people. The platform was described only as a "professional networking website" in the court documents, but its use was confirmed to the Washington Post.
Former government and military employees and contractors are not shy about publicly posting details of their detailed work histories on the website in order to obtain lucrative jobs in the private sector.
This presents a potential goldmine to foreign intelligence agencies. In 2018, US counter-intelligence chief William Evanina warned of "super aggressive" action by Beijing on the Microsoft-owned platform, which is one of few Western social media sites not blocked in China.
Kevin Mallory, a former CIA officer jailed for 20 years last May for disclosing military secrets to a Chinese agent, was first targeted on LinkedIn.
In 2017, Germany's intelligence agency said Chinese agents had used LinkedIn to target at least 10,000 Germans. LinkedIn has not responded to a request for comment for this story but has previously said it takes a range of measures to stop nefarious activity.
Some of the targets that Yeo found by trawling through LinkedIn were commissioned to write reports for his "consultancy", which had the same name as an already prominent firm. These were then sent to his Chinese contacts.
One of the individuals he contacted worked on the US Air Force's F-35 fighter jet programme and admitted he had money problems. Another was a US army officer assigned to the Pentagon, who was was paid at least $2,000 (£1,500) to write a report on how the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan would impact China.
In finding such contacts, Yeo, who was based in Washington DC for part of 2019, was aided by an invisible ally - the LinkedIn algorithm. Each time Yeo looked at someone's profile it would suggest a new slate of contacts with similar experience that he might be interested in. Yeo described it as "relentless".
According to the court documents, his handlers advised him to ask targets if they "were dissatisfied with work" or "were having financial troubles".
William Nguyen, an American former student at the Lee Kuan Yew school who was arrested at a protest in Vietnam in 2018 and later deported, said in a Facebook post on Saturday that Yeo had tried to contact him "multiple times" after he was released from prison and his case made headlines around the world.
In 2018, Yeo also posted fake online job ads for his consulting company. He said he received more than 400 CVs with 90% of them coming from "US military and government personnel with security clearances". Some were passed to his Chinese handlers.
The use of LinkedIn is brazen, but not surprising, said Matthew Brazil, the co-author of Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer.
"I think lots of worldwide intelligence agencies probably use it to seek out sources of information," he said. "Because it's in everybody's interest who is on LinkedIn to put their whole career on there for everybody to see - it's an unusually valuable tool in that regard."
He said that commissioning consultant reports is a way for agents to get "a hook" into a potentially valuable source who might later be convinced to supply classified information.
"It's a modern version of classic tradecraft, really."
US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said the case was an example of how China exploits "the openness of American society" and uses "non-Chinese nationals to target Americans who never leave the United States".
Singapore, a multicultural society of 5.8 million where ethnic Chinese make up the majority of the population, has long enjoyed close links with the United States, which uses its air and naval bases. But it has also sought and maintained positive relations with China.
Mr Kausikan said that he did not believe the spying case - the first known to involve a Singaporean - would hurt the country's reputation with the American government but he feared that Singaporeans could face greater suspicion in American society.
On Sunday, Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said investigations had not revealed any direct threat to the country's security stemming from the case.
LKYSPP's dean, Danny Quah, wrote in an email to faculty and students quoted by the Straits Times newspaper that "no faculty or other students at our school are known to be involved" with the Yeo case.
A spokesperson at the school told the BBC that Yeo had been granted a leave of absence from his PhD in 2019 and his candidature had now been terminated.
Dickson Yeo does not appear to have got as far with his contacts as his handlers would have liked. But in November 2019, he travelled to the US with instructions to turn the army officer into a "permanent conduit of information", his signed statement says.
He was arrested before he could ask.
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World
Australia rejects Beijing's South China Sea claims, backing US
Chinese navy ships, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, during military drills in the South China Sea
https://www.yahoo.com/news/australia-rejects-beijings-south-china-sea-claims-backing-051644854.htmlSydney (AFP) - Australia has rejected Beijing's territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea in a formal declaration to the United Nations, aligning itself more closely with Washington in the escalating row.
In a statement filed on Thursday, Australia said there was "no legal basis" to several disputed Chinese claims in the sea including those related to the construction of artificial islands on small shoals and reefs.
"Australia rejects China's claim to 'historic rights' or 'maritime rights and interests' as established in the 'long course of historical practice' in the South China Sea," the declaration read.
"There is no legal basis for China to draw straight baselines connecting the outermost points of maritime features or 'island groups' in the South China Sea, including around the 'Four Sha' or 'continental' or 'outlying' archipelagos."
The declaration comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries against China's.
Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea based on a so-called nine-dash line, a vague delineation from maps dating back to the 1940s.
The latest escalation comes ahead of annual talks between Australia and the United States, with ministers travelling to Washington for the first time since Australian borders were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The meetings come at a "critical time" and it is essential they are held face-to-face, Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said in a statement on Saturday.
US relations with China have markedly deteriorated in recent months, especially over trade disputes, the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing's crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.
On Friday, Beijing ordered the US consulate in Chengdu to shut in retaliation for the closure of its Houston mission over accusations of being a hub for intellectual property theft.
Payne and Reynolds also penned an article in The Australian newspaper on Saturday, labelling national security legislation imposed on Hong Kong last month as "sweeping and vague".
"We face a public health crisis, economic upheaval and resurgent authoritarian regimes using coercion in a bid to gain power and influence at the expense of our freedoms and sovereignty," they wrote.
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Reuters
Australia says China's South China Sea claims are unlawful
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia has joined the United States in stating that China's claims in the South China Sea do not comply with international law in a declaration likely to anger China and put more strain on their deteriorating relations.
The United States this month rejected China's claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea, drawing criticism from China which said the U.S. position raised tension in the region.
Australia, in a declaration filed at the United Nations in New York on Friday, said it too rejected China’s maritime claims around contested islands in the South China Sea as being inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
"Australia rejects China's claim to 'historic rights' or 'maritime rights and interests' as established in the 'long course of historical practice' in the South China Sea," it said.
Australia also said it did not accept China's assertion that its sovereignty over the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands was "widely recognised by the international community", citing objections from Vietnam and the Philippines.
China claims 90% of the potentially energy-rich waters but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claim to parts of it.
About $3 trillion worth of trade passes through the waterway each year. China has built bases atop atolls in the region but says its intentions are peaceful.
Australia has long advocated for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and for all claimants to resolve their differences in compliance with international laws.
Its more outspoken position on China's claims comes after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said this month China had offered no coherent legal basis for its ambitions in the South China Sea and for years has been using intimidation against other coastal states.
The world would not allow China to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire, Pompeo said, adding that the United States would support countries that believed China has violated their maritime claims.
The United States has long opposed China’s expansive territorial claims on the South China Sea, sending warships regularly through the strategic waterway to demonstrate freedom of navigation.
Australia's declaration on China's claims comes as its foreign and defence ministers prepare to travel to Washington to attend a bilateral forum on July 28, the government said.
Diplomatic tension between China and Australia has worsened recently over various issues including an Australian call for an international enquiry into the novel coronavirus, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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NBC News
Justice Department charges Stanford researcher with lying about ties to Chinese military
A Chinese woman living in the United States as a visiting researcher at Stanford University has been charged with lying about her ties to the Chinese military, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Song Chen, 38, is accused of obtaining a visa by material false statements, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
She was arrested over the weekend and in federal custody Monday night, a spokesman for the office said. A hearing is scheduled Tuesday that will deal with detention issues.
Song is not accused of stealing or sending any materials to China, but she is accused of lying on visa forms in 2018 to apply to go to Stanford as a neurologist.
Court documents say Song answered that she had been in the Chinese military from September 2000 to June 2011, and that she worked at "Xi Diaoyutai Hospital" in Beijing.
Federal prosecutors say those were lies, and that was a member of the People’s Liberation Army when she entered the U.S. in 2018 and when she was here.
They say that the hospital she claimed to work for "was a cover for her true employer, the PLA."
A criminal complaint says Song is employed by a Chinese air force hospital and maintained her affiliation after 2011. Investigators think she is part of a " civilian cadre," whose members are considered active duty military.
The case was sealed in online records Monday. A phone message to an attorney who represented her in court Monday was not immediately returned Monday evening.
A representative for Stanford declined to comment.
An FBI agent who wrote an affidavit in the case wrote that in an interview this month, Song "repeatedly and adamantly denied" any current affiliation with the People's Liberation Army Air Force or the Chinese military or Fourth Military Medical University.
She said, according to the affidavit, that after graduating from Fourth Military Medical University, which is described as a PLA Air Force university, she disassociated from the Chinese military.
But prosecutors said that research articles showed her affiliation with institutions under the air force, and that investigators who searched her computer recovered a deleted document of a letter to the Chinese consulate in New York.
Song allegedly "wrote that her stated employer, Beijing Xi Diaoyutai Hospital, is a false front," according to the U.S. attorney's office.
The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit in the criminal complaint wrote that the recovered letter "provides further evidence that Song works for the PLA and was here on its behalf."
Song is an expert in myasthenia gravis, a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness. A Stanford professor told an investigator that Song's research benefitted the work in his lab, according to the affidavit.
The charge of obtaining a visa by material false statements is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Song is only charged with lying in visa forms.
But FBI Director Chris Wray said at an event earlier this month that that nearly half of the FBI's 5,000 active counterintelligence cases relate to China.
In June, another Chinese national who is alleged to be an officer of the Chinese military was arrested in California on accusations that he lied on visa applications to come to the U.S. as a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, according to the Justice Department.
Xin Wang, who federal prosecutors say is a scientific researcher and officer with the PLA, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport as he attempted to leave for China.
Federal prosecutors say he was instructed by the director of his military university lab in China to observe the layout of the lab at UC San Francisco so that it could be replicated in there. Wang was also charged with visa fraud.
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U.S.
Chinese researcher charged with US visa fraud is in custody
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Chinese researcher accused of concealing her ties to the Chinese military on a visa application she submitted so she could work in the U.S. was booked Friday into a Northern California jail and was expected to appear in federal court Monday.
Sacramento County jail records show Juan Tang, 37, was being held on behalf of federal authorities after she was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service. It was unclear if she had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.
The Justice Department on Thursday announced charges against Tang and three other scientists living in the U.S., saying they lied about their status as members of China’s People’s Liberation Army. All were charged with visa fraud.
Tang was the last of the four to be arrested, after the justice department accused the Chinese consulate in San Francisco of harboring a known fugitive. The consulate did not immediately respond to email and Facebook messages seeking comment and it was not possible to leave a telephone message.
The Justice Department said Tang lied about her military ties in a visa application last October as she made plans to work at the University of California, Davis and again during an FBI interview months later. Agents found photos of Tang dressed in military uniform and reviewed articles in China identifying her military affiliation.
UC Davis said Tang left her job as a visiting researcher in the Department of Radiation Oncology in June. Her work was funded by a study-based exchange program affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, the university said in a statement.
Agents have said they believe Tang sought refuge at the consulate after they interviewed her at her home in Davis on June 20. The FBI has been interviewing visa holders in more than 25 American cities suspected of hiding their ties to the Chinese military.
The allegations came as U.S.-China relations continued to deteriorate, particularly over allegations of Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property.
China's consulate in Houston was scheduled to shut down Friday on order of U.S. authorities after Washington accused Chinese agents of trying to steal medical and other research in Texas.
In response, China on Friday ordered the U.S. to close its consulate in the city of Chengdu.
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CBS News Videos
China vows revenge after U.S. orders consulate in Houston to close
World
People are burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, as Beijing says the US abruptly gave it 72 hours to shut it down
Twitter/ KPRC2Tulsi/Breaking 911
- People were seen burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, and fire services were called to the scene.
- The police told multiple outlets that people were burning documents in what appeared to be open trash cans. It is not clear what those documents were.
- It came as China said the US ordered the consulate to be closed in an "unprecedented escalation." Chinese state media reported that the US had given China 72 hours to close it.
- The State Department said the closing was ordered to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information.
- China painted the decision in light of strained US-China relations, claiming the US "has repeatedly stigmatized China," and vowed to retaliate if the US did not reverse its order.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The local outlet ABC 13 reported early Wednesday morning that trash cans full of documents were being burned in the consulate's courtyard.
A police official told the Houston Chronicle that witnesses saw paper being burned in what appeared to be open trash cans outside the building.
The police also told the local outlet Fox26 Houston that a fire reported at the consulate on Tuesday evening was the result of people burning documents. KPRC 2 reported that the police were told documents were being burned just after 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday.
One witness told KPRC 2: "You could just smell the paper burning."
Fox26 reported that police officers and the fire department were not allowed onto the premises as it's considered Chinese territory. The police official told the Houston Chronicle that the police were not allowed to access the building.
Video footage appears to show documents being burned outside the building:
The Houston police department also tweeted about the apparent document burning.
"About 8:25 pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter call to the China Consulate General in Houston building ... Smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area," the department said. "Officers were not granted access to enter the building."
Business Insider was unable to contact the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Houston outside its working hours.
The news comes as China said the US abruptly ordered China to close it immediately.
"On July 21, the US suddenly requested China to close the Consulate General in Houston. This was a political provocation unilaterally initiated by the US against China," a Chinese Foreign Ministry representative, Wang Wenbin, said on Wednesday, calling it an "unprecedented escalation" in US-China relations.
In a statement sent to Business Insider, the US State Department representative Morgan Ortagus said: "We have directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information," using an abbreviation for the People's Republic of China.
"The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," she added.
Wang said the move "seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relation" and damaged relations between the US and China.
"China strongly condemns this. China urges the US to immediately revoke the wrong decision," he said. "Otherwise, China will definitely make a proper and necessary response."
Hu Xijin, the editor of China's state-backed Global Times newspaper, said the US gave China just 72 hours to close the consulate.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department charged two Chinese state-backed hackers with hacking into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, governments, and individual activists and stealing their data. It is not clear whether these charges are related to the ordered closing.
China has four other consulates in the US — in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco — as well as an embassy in Washington, DC.
The Foreign Ministry statement said the Houston consulate was being closed "unilaterally" by the US "for a limited time." It did not specify a deadline given by the US.
The ministry also criticized the US's treatment of China.
"For a period of time, the US government has repeatedly stigmatized China, conducted unprovoked attacks on China's development, unreasonably made things difficult for Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the US, and intimidated, interrogated, and confiscated personal electronic equipment from Chinese students studying in the US," it said, without giving evidence to back up its charges.
Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said: "President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in US-China relations."
Sen. Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, celebrated the move to close the consulate in a tweet. The Florida Republican referred to the Chinese consulate in Houston as a "massive spy center."
"#China's consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen," Rubio said.
The New York Times noted that while ordering a consulate closed was a strong step, it was one that had been taken before in disputes between countries.
For example, the US ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco in 2017 after Russia restricted the number of diplomats the US could have in Moscow.
An unidentified source told Reuters that Beijing was considering closing the US consulate in the Chinese city of Wuhan in retaliation, but China's next moves remain unclear.
Tensions between the US and China have reached historic heights in the Trump era, with top experts warning that the two major powers are on the brink of a new Cold War. Though he praised China's handling of COVID-19 early on, President Donald Trump shifted to blaming Beijing for the pandemic as the US coronavirus outbreak worsened, which has exacerbated the situation. The virus was originally detected in Wuhan.
"We're essentially in the beginnings of a Cold War," Orville Schell, the director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society, told Insider in May. "We are on a downward slide into something increasingly adversarial with China."
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