China retaliates U.S. by closing its Consulate in Chengdu

The U.S. has announced that it will completely revise its engagement policy toward China, harshly criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “true believer in bankrupt, totalitarian ideology.” The Chinese government instructed the closure of the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, Sichuan in retaliation of the U.S.’ closure of the Chinese Consulate General in Houston.

It is deemed that the two countries’ relations are on the brink of severing for the first time since the two established diplomatic ties 41 years ago as the bilateral tensions that have arisen over the U.S.-China trade disputes, blaming each other for the responsibility of COVID-19, and China’s enactment of Hong Kong national security law are now unfolding as a full-on diplomatic war.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future” at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA on Thursday (local time) “President Nixon once said he feared he had created a ‘Frankenstein’ by opening the world to the CCP, and here we are,” Pompeo said. This implies that the U.S.’s engagement policy toward China, which has continued for about 50 years since President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, has contributed to the growth of the country as the biggest adversary threatening the Western world in modern times.

“We have to keep in mind that the CCP regime is a Marxist-Leninist regime,” Pompeo continued. “We, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change,” he added, encouraging the U.S.’s allies to join in putting pressure on China. Regarding the decision to shutter the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, he claimed that the consulate was the hub of China’s spying and stealing of intellectual property rights.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com