Philip J. Cunningham

Opinion | Closure of China’s Houston consulate shows danger of desperate US behaviour

Given the sharp decline in US-China diplomacy, the positive energy of the relationship’s early days has been replaced by petty bickering and recriminations

The brazen disrespect of science and international law by the US is akin to insisting American exceptionalism be respected at the risk of public health

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Firefighters respond to reports of a fire inside the Chinese consulate in Houston on July 21. Houston police and fire officials responded to reports that documents were being burned in the courtyard of the consulate, according to the Houston Police Department. Photo: AP

Philip J. Cunningham

Published: 5:00pm, 23 Jul 2020Updated: 8:01pm, 23 Jul 2020

The desperate quality of US President Donald Trump’s failing administration is evident in the gross mishandling of the pandemic and the frittering away of diplomatic goodwill, so much so that influential Republican strategists have suggested the approach, “Don’t defend Trump, attack China”.

The sudden closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston is in keeping with the erratic behaviour of the embattled Trump administration. What new provocation has the president triggered today? Expect more in the months leading up to an election that polls and pundits say he is likely to lose.

The expulsion of some 60 Chinese diplomats ends a long, productive chapter of US-China relations and raises fears about the rise of a new kind of US McCarthyism towards China. The Houston consulate was the first consular mission to open during the honeymoon of the US-China relationship in November 1979, not long after Deng Xiaoping’s visit to Texas, during which he famously donned a cowboy hat.

Given the sharp decline in US-China diplomacy, the positive energy of those heady, early days has been replaced by petty bickering. A tit-for-tat dynamic is evident as the world’s two biggest economies compete in trade and security affairs. Just as each side has responded in kind to journalist expulsions, and diplomatic invective is met with provocative language on both sides, expect a US consulate in China to be closed in response.

Speculation suggests the US consulate in Wuhan will be closed, but other missions are at risk, too. Wuhan is in some ways comparable to the Houston mission, located in the heartland and of regional importance but low in international profile.

02:23

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

At least part of the ire from the US State Department under the belligerent leadership of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is founded on diplomatic tomfoolery. The US consulate in Wuhan has largely run on empty since a mysterious virus, now known as Covid-19, first emerged in the region. Now the staff want to return.