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Visitors at the Chinese consulate in Houston try to speak to someone inside on Wednesday, after the facility was ordered closed by the US government. Photo: AFP

Beijing’s Houston consulate is ‘epicentre’ of theft of research by Chinese military, US diplomat says

  • David Stilwell, the top East Asia official at the US State Department, offers the most detailed explanation yet about why the consulate was ordered closed
  • Stilwell also accused China’s consul general in Houston and other diplomats there of having recently used false identification at the city’s airport

China’s Houston consulate is the “epicentre” of efforts by the Chinese military to send students to the US to obtain information that could advance its warfare capabilities, a top US diplomat said on Wednesday in the most detailed explanation so far for the Trump administration’s abrupt decision to order the diplomatic outpost’s closure.

The US government ordered China to close the consulate on Tuesday, provoking outrage from Beijing and prompting diplomats to begin burning documents in the building’s courtyard. Previous statements issued by the State Department spoke only in broad terms about China’s alleged violation of US sovereignty and intimidation of Americans.
That changed on Wednesday morning, when David Stilwell, the top East Asia official at the State Department, singled out the consulate in Houston in a New York Times interview as having “a history of engaging in subversive behaviour”.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been “sending students both overtly and otherwise to American universities to study things to advance their own warfare advantages in the economic world and the rest”, said Stilwell, adding that “at the epicentre of all these activities facilitated by the [People’s Republic of China] mission is this consulate in Houston”.

02:23

China calls US order to close Houston consulate ‘political provocation’

China calls US order to close Houston consulate ‘political provocation’

The facility provides consular services across eight states including Texas, and is one of five – soon to be four – consulates across the country.

Stilwell also accused China’s consul general in Houston and other diplomats there of having recently engaged in questionable activity at Houston’s international airport, where they were escorting Chinese citizens onto a chartered flight to China.

Air China, which has made special flights to repatriate Chinese citizens amid the coronavirus pandemic, was holding paperwork with false birth dates for the diplomats, The Times reported Stilwell as saying.

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The Chinese Embassy in Washington and Air China did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department did not answer a question to clarify what the diplomats’ questionable airport activity was.

Though the most specific explanation for the closure to date, Stilwell’s suggestion that the consulate had been helping students steal from US universities and was guilty of other subversive behaviour was “patchy”, said Jessica Chen Weiss, an expert on Chinese politics and associate professor of government at Cornell University.

“Unless more evidence is forthcoming, the US decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston looks like a stepped-up effort to use China as the bogeyman and distract US voters from the Trump administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic,” Weiss said.

Addressing the consulate’s closure during his tour of Europe, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the US administration was setting out “clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave”.

“And when they don’t, we’re going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs,” said Pompeo, speaking in Denmark.

He is scheduled to deliver an address on Thursday in California on “Communist China and the future of the free world”, the fourth speech in a month from a top US official criticising Beijing for its actions and global ambitions.

Expressing doubt about the “intel capabilities” of the consulate in Houston, former Beijing-based US diplomat James Green said that Pompeo’s upcoming address at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library was the “likely real driver” of the administration’s decision to close the office.

“Having something big to announce or explain will give the speech more ‘umph’,” said Green, who also served as the top China official on the White House’s National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.

01:17

Pompeo urges all nations to 'push back' against China on visit to the UK

Pompeo urges all nations to 'push back' against China on visit to the UK

“Given Secretary Pompeo’s series of increasingly vitriolic anti-China tirades, it’s fair to ask if the timing of this action was linked to his upcoming speech at the Nixon library,” echoed Daniel Russel, the former top East Asia official at the State Department under president Barack Obama and now vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

The move marks a further deterioration in US-China relations, with tensions boiling on fronts including suspected human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the new national security law imposed on Hong Kong and Beijing’s claims to territories in the South China Sea.

Adding to the spat this week were indictments against Chinese nationals charged with hacking American coronavirus and defence secrets.

Joel Brenner, inspector general of the National Security Agency under Bush and now a senior adviser at the Chertoff Group, a Washington consultancy, said it was time for the US government to take bolder steps to root out Chinese espionage.

“Both the Bush and the Obama administrations were DUI, that is, driving under the influence of firms that were desperate to appease the Chinese government because of the market there,” said Brenner, author of the 2011 book America the Vulnerable. “I don’t approve of all the ways in which the Trump administration is going about it, but I’m not sorry that they’re getting tough.”

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While cautioning that he did not know the details of the Chinese government’s operations in Houston, Brenner said it would have been an easier base from which to conduct espionage, compared with China.

“A consulate could be the place where you’re selecting students to influence, suggesting where you want to place these students because of their research into sensitive areas of R&D, and the place where you could be running communications with those students after you place them,” he said.

“From China, your communications could be intercepted, but if I want to talk to someone at MIT, I could get on a plane and fly to Boston, I can meet them for coffee.”

China has vowed to retaliate against the consulate action, with analysts anticipating a reciprocal closure of one the United States’ five consulates in the country.

While Beijing could take the symbolic step of closing the consulate in Sichuan’s Chengdu – which covers an area including Tibet, a pressure point in bilateral relations – Green predicted it would likely opt for the simpler option of closing the office in Wuhan, the United States’ smallest and newest consulate.

But, said Green: “Given how restricted US diplomats are in their activities in China and how closely the media and other organisations like universities and schools are controlled by authorities inside China, I do not think this move materially changes bilateral relations.”

Pointing to the consulate locations of Shenyang, Chengdu and Wuhan, Green said that “US messages and outreach in those cities have been limited for quite some time”.

The Chinese consulate office in Houston. Photo: EPA-EFE

Predictions that Beijing will order the US consulate in Wuhan closed come as the US State Department follows through with flights to bring consular staff members back to China, most of whom left as Covid-19 was still spreading in the country.

One flight consisting of about 150 government employees and family members was scheduled to depart from Washington on Wednesday afternoon for Shanghai, with a stopover in Guam, according to one consular official on the flight. All passengers will be tested on arrival and are required by the Chinese government to quarantine in designated accommodations for 14 days.

Another flight from Washington to Tianjin is scheduled for July 29.

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney

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