The American flag was lowered at the US consulate in Chengdu on Monday and Chinese authorities entered the building, as Beijing carried out a Cold War-style retaliatory closure of the mission.
Relations have deteriorated in recent weeks in an intensifying standoff between Washington and Beijing, with the Chengdu mission ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas.
China takes over US consulate in Chengdu
Beijing confirmed that the consulate had closed at 10:00 am (0200 GMT) on Monday.
“Afterwards, Chinese authorities entered through the front entrance and took it over,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Both consulates closed 72 hours after the respective orders were made.
A State Department spokesman told AFP the mission’s diplomats and their dependents would leave China by August 27.
Read more: China retaliates: orders closure of US Consulate in Chengdu
Video footage published later Monday by the US embassy on Chinese social media platform Weibo showed US Marines in dress uniform lowering and folding the Stars and Stripes from the front of the consulate, before handing it to consul general Jim Mullinax.
Diplomatic tensions have soared between the two powers, with both alleging the other had endangered national security.
Footage from Chinese state media showed officials arriving at the consulate in a minibus and walking into the front of the building.
They were followed by several workers in full hazmat suits and goggles, carrying cleaning equipment.
Two men wearing white gloves were shown covering up a US consulate sign on the wall outside the building with a large grey sheet.
China moves to clean US Consulate of American symbols
A crowd gathered Monday outside the now-closed mission, and one man was escorted away by police after waving a banner and two Chinese flags while shouting “Long live China’s Communist Party”.
People lighting firecrackers🧨 outside US consulate in #Chengdu to celebrate China’s order to shut it down in response to US shut down of Chinese consulate in #Houston pic.twitter.com/zajf11bVVV
— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) July 24, 2020
Over the weekend, removal trucks entered the site and cleaners were seen carting large black rubbish bags from the consulate.
Read more: What was the “message” behind US shutting down Chinese consulate?
AFP reporters saw workers removing the US insignia from the front of the building
“Today, we bid farewell to the US consulate in Chengdu. We will miss you forever,” the US embassy in Beijing posted on Weibo.
In a separate statement the consul general posted that his mission had provided services to more than 200 million people in southwest China and Tibet, and had given “thousands” of visas every day to Chinese students and tourists.
Why did China order the closure of US Consulate?
The Chengdu consulate covered southwest China, including Tibet. Many Tibetans accuse the central government of religious repression and eroding their culture.
Beijing says closing the consulate was a “legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States”, and has alleged that staff at the diplomatic mission endangered China’s security and interests.
Read more: US ordered closure of consulate, China will retaliate: Beijing
Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that some US staff in the Chengdu consulate “were engaged in activities outside of their capacity, interfered in China’s internal affairs, and endangered China’s security and interests”.
Washington officials, meanwhile, said there had been unacceptable efforts by the Chinese consulate in Houston to steal US corporate secrets and proprietary medical and scientific research.
China-US tensions nearing fever pitch
Tensions have soared between the world’s two biggest economic powers on a range of fronts including trade, China’s handling of the novel coronavirus and a tough new security law imposed on Hong Kong, with US officials warning of a “new tyranny” from China.
The last Chinese diplomats left the Houston consulate on Friday.
https://twitter.com/Superbunnyman1/status/1286531092183277569
Beijing said Saturday that US agents “forcibly” entered the Houston consulate, which it said was “China’s national property”.
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Its statement warned that “China will make a proper and necessary response in this regard”.
Nationalistic tabloid the Global Times warned in an editorial Monday that if Washington was “determined to push China-US ties in the worst direction… the 21st century will be darker and even more explosive than the Cold War era”.
It said the rising tensions could lead to “unprecedented catastrophe”.
AFP with additional input by GVS News Desk