China Vows Retaliation After U.S. Shuts Down Houston Consulate

China vowed retaliation after the U.S. forced the closure of its Houston consulate, prompting stocks to fall in one of the biggest blows to diplomatic ties between the two countries in decades.

The U.S. government gave China three days to close its consulate in America’s fourth-most populous city in an “unprecedented escalation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing Wednesday in Beijing. China planned to “react with firm countermeasures” if the Trump administration didn’t “revoke this erroneous decision,” Wang said.

China Vows Retaliation After U.S. Shuts Down Houston Consulate

Seems like tensions are escalating fast.

Apparently the news about the consulate closure leaked out when neighbors of the consulate saw employees burning massive amounts of paperwork outside the building, and called the fire department/police.

I don't like this move on our part. I understand China is ripping us off, in terms of technology and intellectual property, but we should hit back economically, via our manufacturing and production and supply chains in China. Closing down embassies is never a good sign, and historically has been a prelude to conflict.

Hold onto your hats...

I started this thread as Breaking News post, but someone has beaten me to the punch.

infolurker already started a thread about the burning of the documents outside the consulate; you can participate in that thread at this link.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened
What else will they do, attempt to order more American companies under their ownership to stop production under guise of "covid-19"? I would not be too concerned though, Oceania and Eurasia have always been at war with east Asia.

How did the russians respond when they were ordered to vacate their embassy in san fran a few years ago??

originally posted by: musicismagic
yesterday I posted about china continuously

wake up americans
you are being sold out by you politicians
trump is giving it straight to you all


hard to swallow

here in japan, the fkn corps sold out japan to the chinks about 20 years ago, now no real jobs

They did it here in Britain too. Now no real jobs, don't be fooled tourists by the welth of London and it's sucking up of dirty USSR and Arab money, step outside the South East and it's a rust belt.

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
He once told me that Japan has secretly had a nuke program for many years; he claims they built them in Toyota auto factories.

I think that is not probable, there are too many people involved in that type of program to try and hide the development in automotive plants.

What they do have is a very large amount of plutonium which is theorized that they can turn into a weapon within six months. They harder part is creating the plutonium, the actual device itself wouldn't be as much a challenge for the Japanese.

Long term how is breaking some of these ties to China going to hurt us? Short term we may find some products we were used to buying in short supply or at a higher cost but of anything relatively important what do they offer the US people that without some re-tooling of our manufacturing infrastructure we can supply for ourselves? There are countless examples of them stealing technology from us and until the Clintons came to office their technological advancement was well behind most of the rest of the world.

Everyday there seems to be more and more stories coming out about the horrendous treatment the CCP is giving to portions of their population as well as some of their disingenuous information about Covid. Why all of a sudden are these stories coming out? I have a feeling the tides are turning in China and very soon the Chinese people are going to take a big stand. Couple that with the natural disaster the flooding is having will cause huge issues with food supplies and just general modern living. Everyday the pressure is growing on the CCP and at some point there are going to break. My only concern is to what lengths they will go once they get really desperate. There is a real possibility they are entrenching themselves as the world villain with very few friends and supporters

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
He once told me that Japan has secretly had a nuke program for many years; he claims they built them in Toyota auto factories.

I think that is not probable, there are too many people involved in that type of program to try and hide the development in automotive plants.

What they do have is a very large amount of plutonium which is theorized that they can turn into a weapon within six months. They harder part is creating the plutonium, the actual device itself wouldn't be as much a challenge for the Japanese.

You are right of course; the whole story seemed pretty implausible when he told me, but I of course humored him.

Nevertheless, my neighbor is a conspiracy theorist, and that is a whopper of a theory.

What are they gonna do? Steal our intellectual property? Cheat on trade deals? Kick our corporations out of China? Sounds like a win-win situation to me to kick them out of Houston. We should kick all of them out and cut off trade completely.

originally posted by: Middleoftheroad
What are they gonna do? Steal our intellectual property? Cheat on trade deals? Kick our corporations out of China? Sounds like a win-win situation to me to kick them out of Houston. We should kick all of them out and cut off trade completely.

We know what they'll do: close down 1 or more of our consulates in retaliation.

It's never a good thing to have LESS diplomatic channels with friend or foe.

Someone with more knowledge can chime in, I'm SURE we have multiple Chinese consulates in the US in other cities, so this could just be a token gesture, even a preplanned one with China's consent (what better way for each country to rile up resentment for the other side?).

If we cut off trade completely, at this moment, the consequences would be devastating. Something like 90% of all anti-biotics are produced in China.

The better approach is to rebuild our mfg base here in the US, /then/ draw down trade.

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
Someone with more knowledge can chime in, I'm SURE we have multiple Chinese embassies in the US in other cities, so this could just be a token gesture, even a preplanned one with China's consent (what better way for each country to rile up resentment for the other side?).

China has only one embassy in the United States and vice versa, this was a consulate. These can be located by mutual agreement based on various factors including number of foreign nationals residing, working or visiting in that metropolitan area.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
Someone with more knowledge can chime in, I'm SURE we have multiple Chinese embassies in the US in other cities, so this could just be a token gesture, even a preplanned one with China's consent (what better way for each country to rile up resentment for the other side?).

China has only one embassy in the United States and vice versa, this was a consulate. These can be located by mutual agreement based on various factors including number of foreign nationals residing, working or visiting in that metropolitan area.

Thanks for clarifying. Is their embassy in Manhattan, like some other countries? I would walk by many embassies in midtown during lunch.

EDIT nope, looks like their embassy is in D.C.
www.china-embassy.org...

originally posted by: [post=25316041]SleeperHasAwakened[/post
Thanks for clarifying. Is their embassy in Manhattan, like most other countries? I would walk by many embassies in midtown during lunch.

No, it's in the capital where all embassies are located, Manhattan has a consulate.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: [post=25316041]SleeperHasAwakened[/post
Thanks for clarifying. Is their embassy in Manhattan, like most other countries? I would walk by many embassies in midtown during lunch.

No, it's in the capital where all embassies are located, Manhattan has a consulate.

Makes sense, I understand the distinction now.

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened

originally posted by: musicismagic
yesterday I posted about china continuously

wake up americans
you are being sold out by you politicians
trump is giving it straight to you all


hard to swallow

here in japan, the fkn corps sold out japan to the chinks about 20 years ago, now no real jobs

You seem to genuinely dislike the Chinese MIM, IMO the slur in your post is uncalled for though. I understand the dislike but our fight is with the CCP and not the Chinese people.

My neighbor is Chinese, an elderly fellow, quite eccentric, but very friendly. He can't stand the Japanese. He once told me that Japan has secretly had a nuke program for many years; he claims they built them in Toyota auto factories.

There has to be a better way to hit back at China than this. They coopted a lot of our manufacturing and economic success, with help from US business I might add. We should IMO focus on economic retribution, NOT diplomatic or military payback.

Thats from a Clive Cussler novel.

What China has learned is most of the world can be bought, what we are learning is politicians and big business has sold us out. Now we have sellers remorse, LOL the industry I'm in started moving over seas in the late 80's. Lot of companies and men and women made a lot money in the switch over, but it seriously looks like China has wrung every last dollar from the business. With everything else going on, it's one of many that may not survive and if it does it will be decades before it hits its former glory.

Any business any industry must have diversity or eventually it's at the mercy of that bottleneck. My Dad (RIP) called it in the early 90's even as the business supported 5 families and a handful of employees. He said the industry sold out control and ownership for the immediate quick buck way back then,and now the industry in flushed with old product it can't sell retail or wholesale and the retail environment is likely to never return and the wholesale end faces massive changes and immediate uncertainties.

In other words we are screwed, hopefully a few at least got out from under China's thumb locating production elsewhere but it's not in the USA. No telling how many small industries have been kicked in the nuts by China's COVID initially and now getting a roundhouse from the socio/political climate.

This is why as distasteful as Trump to some, he is the only choice that may bring back the economy quick enough to avoid complete financial disaster for the next 5 years. China wants Biden because like so many of the men and women in my industry decades ago,he can bought and manipulated. We don't start reversing this now it will really be too late, hell it probably already is.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened
Yeah man we need to differentiate between CCP and Chinese nationals!

They’re people like us.