Update…
The Chinese Consulate in Houston has closed…
….
Hmmmm?
What is Trump and Sec of State Pompeo gonna do?
Remember ….
American has thousands of Diplomat’s in China……
Hopefully this can work its way out…..
The head of the Chinese Consulate in Houston won’t commit to closing the office — a direct threat of defiance to the State Department’s demand that it be shut down by Friday.
In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, Cai Wei, the Chinese Consul General in Houston, said China is protesting the closure order and his office will remain open “until further notice.”
“Today we are still operating normally, so we will see what will happen tomorrow,” he said, declining to elaborate further.
Cai said Beijing has asked the U.S. to rescind its Tuesday order to close the consulate, which China argues runs afoul of international agreements governing diplomatic relations.
“We think that the demand from the U.S. side … is not according to the Vienna convention on consular affairs and also is not according to international practice or [diplomatic] norms, and it violates the China-U.S. consular treaty,” Cai said. “We prepared for the worst scenario but we’ve also launched a strong protest … so we urge the U.S. to abandon and revoke that wrong decision.”
Cai’s remarks came as the South China Morning Post reported that Beijing is likely to close a U.S. consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu, which is strategically important for the U.S. given its interest in Tibet. But the head of the Houston consulate declined to comment on how Beijing should respond to the order to close his office.
Cai stressed that he is the head representative of the Chinese government in Houston, but China experts said he is unlikely to have the authority to decide on his own whether to keep the consulate open.
“I would be very surprised if the consulate itself can decide without listening to Beijing,” said Ho-Fung Hung, a professor of political economy and sociology who focuses on China at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “They must be waiting for orders from Beijing with respect to what to do, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Beijing and the U.S. have been [talking] through the backchannels, discussing the situation.”
“Beijing might give instruction to the consulate at the last minute on what to do,” he added. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts said that a refusal to close the consulate would be unprecedented in the history of U.S.-China relations, noting that even the Russian government did not resist when the U.S. closed two of its diplomatic annexes in 2017…..