Consulate in Chengdu readies for closure as U.S., China clash

Get out of China. It was a mistake to allow it into the rest of the world only democracies belong among us.

sf2kToday  03:30 pm JST

Get out of China. It was a mistake to allow it into the rest of the world only democracies belong among us.

Yes it was a mistake. The Nixon-Kissinger administration combined the short-term goal of isolating and putting the focus on the USSR (remember; China and USSR were shooting at each other at their border) with the long term goal of tapping PRC's manpower resources. Fast forward to the Clinton administration who pushed PRC's entry into the WTO with the argument that raising China's economic level would raise their standard of living, create a larger middle class, and would pressure the CCP into becoming more liberal and moving closer towards democracy.

Guess what? China took what the world offered, became the 2nd biggest economic power in the world, built the biggest military machine in Asia, and has tightened authoritarian control. All with the 10 years or so of the big lie "Peaceful Rise". Now the cat's out of the bag, no country on this planet thinks China is all that peaceful. Under Xi Jing Ping, ruler for life, it is a matter of time before China decides to "take" Taiwan. The PLA hawk Generals are without doubt arguing to make a move while America is down on one knee with COVID19 and internal strife.

China is no longer Communist China, it is Fascist China. And a threat to democracy. Just look at Hong Kong.

This is not a Trump/Biden issue. It is bipartisan and will continue long into the next several Presidencies. Welcome to Cold War 2.0.

U.S. regrets opening their market to China. We have a saying "Hisashi wo kashite omoya wo torareru" (lend eaves and main house taken).

Got any staff in China , make plans now to extract them before they become hostages held as suspected spies by the twisted CCP, they have a habit of that type of behavour.

Reckless* Death by a thousand cuts many?

Next phase of Cold War 2.0 now a reality. Till what end is everyone’s guess.

Be happy to leave ,nobody wants to live under despotic communist regime (except mainlanders but actually nobody is asking for their opinion)

Consulates and embassies - Every country uses them more or less for their intelligence purposes.

This spying has been going on for many years, probably before many of us where even born. The threat was first mentioned back during the Clinton admin when a U2 spy plane was shot down by China, cut open live on TV in half, stripped gutted for the tech and the US did what?, absolutely nothing except allow more US companies and tech into China, vice versa opened up our top universities, literally just gave away VISA's that took American jobs to be filled in order to meet and please the political correct folks and status quo. There were stories back then about all the spying but nothing was done by any administration. Let's see there was Clinton, Bush, Obama and now it took a current President to do something for real outside empty threats and instead is nearly crucified for taking action. hmmm....Did we all miss a check from China? I didn't get one di you? I'm pretty sure the politicos got some along the way.

quercetumToday  06:53 pm JST

It was not a mistake in my opinion of the US to try and open up the Chinese market and thereby start the democratization process. It failed, but the effort to influence China on human rights, free speech, and western values is not a mistake and should be commended.

But we also failed to influence China on human rights, free speech and western values as well. When the intent and motive of an action is not only not achieved, but the result is even worse than before, most of us call that a "mistake".

The AvengerToday  03:50 pm JST

Solid reason to believe war with China is looming

Suddenly there are accusations China is using it's consulates as spy networks. That always happens before a planned war, any country that has plans to attack China is going to report that Chinese consulates on their soil are spy networks. The U.S. said it first, therefore logic would have it that the U.S. will start the war.

That's not logical at all. China has already started a war against the United States in every which way other than actual shooting. China has and is threatening the territorial sovereignty of several Asian nations. It has also continued to threaten Taiwan with military force. The United States is only acting to maintain the status quo while China is acting aggressively to expand it's territorial and strategic dominance.

China has already started a war against the United States in every which way other than actual shooting. China has and is threatening the territorial sovereignty of several Asian nations. It has also continued to threaten Taiwan with military force. The United States is only acting to maintain the status quo while China is acting aggressively to expand its territorial and strategic dominance.

I agree with your statement, OssanAmerica. I am glad that the US has just decided to take on China. But being late is better than not at all.

I hope that more nations in the Group of Seven and the free world will soon respond to Pompeo's call to change China if they do not want to be changed by China.

Despite China is Australia's largest trading partner, the way Scott Morrison and both sides of politics in Australia reject China's territorial and maritime claims in the Southeast Asia Sea is considered to be courageous and respectable.

Consulate in Chengdu readies for closure

Well, they are not burning barrels full of documents in a panic, like their CCP counterpart. The CCP is of course trying to present a tit-for-tat situation, but I think they are failing.

The Avenger

Solid reason to believe war with China is looming

We are already in the middle of one. A war does not always have to be a military shooting war. In fact, the CCP has been at war with us for a long time; what is new is that we now react to it.

But we also failed to influence China on human rights, free speech and western values as well. 

Yes, the US failed with China and made things worse. Nothing new: Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and so on.

We will know how serious the US is if they tell the Chinese to close their consulate in San Francisco. That consulate is very much a center of espionage on the high tech sector in San Francisco and the San Jose area. Closing that consulate would do a great deal of harm to China's ability to collect intelligence on the tech sector and to turn their employees into spies for China (which is what those, cough, cough, "Consular Officers" who really work for the Second Directorate of the PLA General Staff Division do by way of their work). Chengdu is the site of some of China's most important military industries not the least of which is Chengdu Aircraft, maker of the J-10 and J-20. Having people on the ground there was probably very important to the US.

Solid reason to believe war with China is looming

Suddenly there are accusations China is using it's consulates as spy networks. That always happens before a planned war, any country that has plans to attack China is going to report that Chinese consulates on their soil are spy networks. The U.S. said it first, therefore logic would have it that the U.S. will start the war.

Why spy networks? Because consulates and embassies are islands of nations on foreign shores. It is natural to use them for spying during war, so the U.S. is issuing preemptive accusations.

sf2kToday  03:30 pm JST

Get out of China. It was a mistake to allow it into the rest of the world only democracies belong among us.

Yes it was a mistake. The Nixon-Kissinger administration combined the short-term goal of isolating and putting the focus on the USSR

It was not a mistake in my opinion of the US to try and open up the Chinese market and thereby start the democratization process. It failed, but the effort to influence China on human rights, free speech, and western values is not a mistake and should be commended.

1glenn

but the obsession of Trump with Mexicans, Muslims, and Chinese, is unhealthy and counter-productive.

What are you prattling about? How in the world is Trumps policy of taking on the CCP regime an "obsession"? And what do Mexicans and Muslims have to do with it (unless you call calling attention to the Uigur death camps in China an "obsession".

The closure of China’s Consulate in Houston is a big charade.

Mike Pompeo should have opened a new Embassy of the USA in Taipei.

Such a move could have made America not only credible again but would make even Biden wear a jumbo MAGA hat!

No question da-kine Trump wins in a landslide!

"Why spy networks? Because consulates and embassies are islands of nations on foreign shores. It is natural to use them for spying during war, so the U.S. is issuing preemptive accusations."

It's not that simple. Pretty much every nation uses diplomatic cover to allow their intelligence officers to collect intelligence in the host country. They come in as a "Consular Officer" or some such title and have diplomatic status (and diplomatic immunity) but are there to spy on the host country. For that reason nations are often very reluctant to break diplomatic relations even with their worst adversaries because once they do so they are unable to see what is going on or speak to people there.

Where China is different from other nations is the nature of their spying. The US and other nations try to find out the foreign governments secrets and their military secrets. Pretty much all nations consider their official and military secrets to be fair game for spying. But China uses spy networks to collect commercial secrets from the hose nation's many companies and uses this to give Chinese business a competitive advantage over their foreign peers. Among nations that promote competitive market economies that kind of spying is almost universally considered to be repugnant. The Chinese spy on foreign corporations, steal their business and technical secrets, subsidize their own firms and feed them their competitors secrets to undercut the competition and try to dominate whole markets with Chinese firms pushing out everyone else. That cannot be allowed to happen and must be countered by the market economies of Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The claim that the Chinese consular staff was burning counterfeit US Dollars is speculative nonsense. It makes no sense whatsoever. The Chinese buy US Treasuries to soak up excess dollars earned from their trade surplus with the US. A Dollar is like any other commodity. When there is a surplus of dollars, say, in China, they lose value. When the Dollar loses value, the Yuen rises in value, making Chinese goods more expensive in trade. The Chinese don't want to see the value of the Yuen appreciate and make their goods more expensive to buy so the Chinese use their accumulated Dollars to buy up US Treasury notes, preventing them from accumulating and losing value. Now some want to say the Chinese were printing vast amounts of the very currency they are trying to prevent from accumulating and losing value? Laughable. No, shredding and burning is a classic way to dispose of classified documents. This is what the Chinese were doing, not burning counterfeit US Dollars.

"OnTheTrail: The U.S. does as much industrial espionage as any other country. The US practically invented it with the Echelon surveillance network. Enercon, Bayer and many companies have had intellectual property stolen by the NSA (that employs about 50,000 people whose sole purpose is to electronically spy on the world) and turned over to American companies."

The US is looking for occasions where foreign firms sell US dual use technologies to nations that are forbidden to have those technologies. The US trusts many allies to guard certain commercial technologies that have great military value, such as turbine engines and certain automated processes just to name a couple, however commercial pressures are such that on occasion foreign beneficiaries of these technologies sell them to America's enemies. One famous example was Toshiba selling the Russians a milling machine that allowed them to more precisely mill submarine propeller blades, and thus make them quieter and harder to find. That sale allowed the Russians to greatly advance their submarine technology, harming not just the US but also Japan as Japan's subs also lost some of their advantage vis-a-vis Russian subs.

The closure of China’s Consulate in Houston is a big charade.

Mike Pompeo should have opened a new Embassy of the USA in Taipei.

Such a move could have made America not only credible again but would make even Biden wear a jumbo MAGA hat!

No question da-kine Trump wins in a landslide!

Taiwanese media reporting that the Chinese staff was highly likely burning counterfeit US currency in the courtyard (thus no shredding).

Peter, I think that industrial and scientific espionage and counterfeit currency, etc., is not what countries do and have done. At the very least it is clearly the activity of an enemy.

"Taiwanese media reporting that the Chinese staff was highly likely burning counterfeit US currency in the courtyard (thus no shredding)."

Shredding and burning documents is not the only secure way to dispose of them.

"Mike Pompeo should have opened a new Embassy of the USA in Taipei."

Two comments. Number one, a decision to renounce the One China policy is of such great importance that such a decision should only be made by Congress in the form a Joint Resolution. That would carry a great deal more weight than a not too well regarded Secretary of State or even a President saying it.

Second, Taiwan would have to be on board and agree, knowing that doing so would be seen by the CCP as a declaration of independence leading straight to war. The US would have to be prepared to commit forces to Taiwan immediately and for the foreseeable future, a deployment that would probably have to be as large or larger than the forces committed to South Korea.

Good, considered comments, Desert T.

Thanks Neil. Interesting reading, although SOMEwhat bent to the negative side.

No doubt plenty of truth to it (if not all).

CCP can and does surveil every aspect of lives in China, but somehow this operation managed to slip by (just like the fentanyl factories also I guess) https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/28/900000-counterfeit-seized-customs-all-one-dollar-bills/4598937002/

Taiwan TV is suggesting the use of counterfeit, I had not thought of it but clearly a couple advantages would be no tracing, devaluing the real dollar are a couple that would come to mind.

Echelon is run by the Five Eyes, hardly the industrial espionage factory that CCP works.

"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/28/900000-counterfeit-seized-customs-all-one-dollar-bills/4598937002/"

"Site can't be reached"

Japan will be sidelined if the Keidanren still kowtows to the CCP. South Korea is also the same story with Moon administration tries to mend ties with China for the sake of reunification, while Chaebols are heavily dependent on China's supply chains.

The embassies and consulates of all countries are full of spies.

Always have been and always will be.

OnTheTrail: The U.S. does as much industrial espionage as any other country. The US practically invented it with the Echelon surveillance network. Enercon, Bayer and many companies have had intellectual property stolen by the NSA (that employs about 50,000 people whose sole purpose is to electronically spy on the world) and turned over to American companies.

Why would the Chinese consulate have or need counterfeit currency when they have over a $1 trillion of US debt. Heck, Trump borrowed over $200 million from the Bank of China to finance a share in a NYC property. Chinese state owned companies are building two Trump properties in the Middle East.[1]

[1]https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-biden-china-debt-205475

There are valid differences between the immediate perceived interests of any two nations, but the obsession of Trump with Mexicans, Muslims, and Chinese, is unhealthy and counter-productive.

I look forward to the day when a new, more intelligent and more mature administration takes over the White House, and the improvement of relations between America and the rest of the world.