US escalates cold war by demanding China close Houston consulate

According to my understanding, it is a move to pressure Beijing to get more US diplomats back to their posts in China. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, the US had hurriedly evacuated quite a number of American diplomats and citizens from China. Now Washington believes it is time for them to continue their China mission. Yet negotiations on their return did not go quite smoothly.

The US has postponed flights for dozens of its diplomats who had planned to return to China “after failing to reach agreement with Beijing over issues including COVID-19 testing and quarantine,” according to a Reuters report on July 1.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on July 2 that China’s quarantine measures “apply equally to all foreign diplomatic missions to China.”