On Wednesday, the US ordered China to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston, Texas, further ratcheting up tensions between the two biggest military and economic powers. China termed the order ‘unbelievably ridiculous’, threatening to take firm countermeasures. The Trump administration justified the closure due to what it called repeated Chinese violations of American sovereignty, including ‘massive illegal spying and influence operations.’ President Trump warned he might close more Chinese consulates should China not stop its illegal operations. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the Chinese were ‘stealing not just American intellectual property…but European intellectual property too…costing hundreds of thousands of jobs.’ Further, the US accused the Houston consulate of ‘interfering in the US domestic politics as well as coercing business leaders and threatening families of Chinese Americans residing in China and more.’ Within hours of the order to close the mission, local television channels showed the consulate staff burning documents in the compound with the flames leaping high over the building. However, the fire tenders were not allowed inside by the consulate staff. Houston was one of the five Chinese consulates in the US aside from the embassy in Washington. On the other hand, the US has six consulates in China in addition to its embassy in Beijing. It is likely that China may order the closure of the Wuhan consulate in retaliation. Following the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, all US missions were thinly staffed. Previously, the US had indicted two persons connected to the Chinese for spying on the coronavirus vaccine development. With the US imposing sanctions against China for imposing the draconian security law on Hong Kong and imposing tariffs on Chinese exports to protest unfair trade practices, there is every chance of the diplomatic hostilities between Washington and Beijing increasing further. Though some observers suspect that Trump is raising the heat against China with an eye on his re-election coming November, in all fairness there exists concrete evidence of China’s predatory diplomacy in most countries. The US authorities may have chosen not to up the ante, as it were, until now, but they were fully aware of the nefarious operations of the Chinese diplomats all along. In recent weeks, Trump has not missed an opportunity to accuse China of stealing American jobs, its intellectual property and, what is particularly galling for Beijing, of infecting the world with a Wuhan-lab developed virus. Under the circumstances, how many fronts would President Xi Jinping simultaneously fight on is for him to decide, but one thing is clear: China is virtually friendless in the comity of nations. And those it calls friend, such as Pakistan, count for zilch in the global community. Inspiring fear rather than respect in world capitals is a reflection on the Chinese foreign policy.
