Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Houston | |
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Location | Houston, Texas, US |
Address | 3417 Montrose Boulevard |
Coordinates | 29°44′30″N95°23′27″W / 29.74167°N 95.39083°W |
Opened | November 20, 1979 |
Closed | July 24, 2020 |
Consul General | Hua Jinzhou (last) |
Website | Official website |
Consulate General of China, Houston | |||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 中华人民共和国驻休斯敦总领事馆 | ||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 中華人民共和國駐休斯敦總領事館 | ||||||||
Literal meaning | Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Houston | ||||||||
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The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Houston was a diplomatic mission of China,headquartered at 3417 Montrose Boulevard in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston,Texas. It served eight states in the Southern United States:Texas,Oklahoma,Louisiana,Arkansas,Mississippi,Alabama,Georgia,and Florida,in addition to Puerto Rico. An earlier diplomatic mission had been established by the Republic of China government and was in existence by 1935. [1]
Opened in 1979 by the People's Republic of China,it was the first Chinese consulate general to be established in the United States. On July 24,2020,the consulate was ordered to close by the United States government. [2]
In addition to the main consulate building,it also maintained an education office in Midtown. [3]
Prior to the establishment of the People's Republic of China,a Chinese consulate was already present in Houston. [1] The Republic of China,as of 1937,was represented by a vice-consul. [4] The descendant of the ROC consulate still exists today,without diplomatic recognition,as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston. [ citation needed ]
The current PRC consulate was established in 1979 as the first PRC consulate in the United States,after Deng Xiaoping's visit to the United States and the normalization of China–United States relations. [5] In an agreement between U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Chinese Vice Premier Bo Yibo,China agreed to accept two U.S. consulates in Guangzhou and Shanghai,while Mainland China would open two consulates in Houston and San Francisco. [6] The Houston consulate-general was officially opened on November 20,1979. [7]
In April 1981,the consulate became the center of a diplomatic incident between Mainland China and the United States as Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin was held in the consulate for 21 hours with his newly wed American wife. Li had intended to defect to the U.S.,and in the ensuing incident FBI agents surrounded the consulate with a U.S. delegation led by then Vice President George H. W. Bush successfully negotiating for Li's release. [8] [9]
On July 21,2020,the United States government ordered the consulate in Houston to be closed within 72 hours. [2] The U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus released a statement saying that "The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people", [10] and that the State Department "have directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston,in order to protect American intellectual property [from Chinese theft] and American's private information". [11] The Houston consulate was accused of being part of a general Chinese espionage effort in the United States, [12] specifically stealing data on medical research and the oil and gas sector. [13] [14] In May 2020,an independent research report from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology found that,"Before its closure in the summer of 2020,the Chinese Consulate in Houston,Texas was a major hub in China’s global S&T information gathering operation. From January 2015 to July 2020,Houston Consulate staff identified more S&T projects than any other PRC diplomatic post in the world." [15] The consulate was also accused of harassing the families of Chinese dissidents while trying to coerce them to return to Mainland China. [16]
In immediate reaction to the news of the closure,stock indices in Hong Kong,in Shanghai,and in Shenzhen dropped. [17] Within the hours after the announcement,videos emerged on Houston's locally broadcast KPRC-TV showing documents being burned in barrels in the courtyard of the consulate. [11] Local police and fire departments received reports of the fires at around 8 pm local time, [18] and as first responders arrived at the consulate,they were denied entry. [11] Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin issued a statement in response requesting the U.S. to reverse the closure,threatening reciprocal actions (e.g. closing an American consulate in China) otherwise.
On July 24,United States officials entered the former consulate and took over the building. [19] [20] In retaliation,the Chinese government ordered the United States on Friday to close its consulate in Chengdu,in response to the U.S. shutting down the Houston consulate. [21]
Source: [22]
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The political status of Taiwan or the Taiwan issue is a long-running dispute on the political status of Taiwan,currently controlled by the Republic of China (ROC). This dispute arose in the mid-twentieth century,and is ongoing.
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As a result of the surrender and occupation of Japan at the end of World War II,the islands of Taiwan and Penghu were placed under the governance of the Republic of China (ROC),ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT),on 25 October 1945. Following the February 28 massacre in 1947,martial law was declared in 1949 by the Governor of Taiwan,Chen Cheng,and the ROC Ministry of National Defense. Following the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949,the ROC government retreated from the mainland as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The KMT retreated to Taiwan and declared Taipei the temporary capital of the ROC. For many years,the ROC and PRC each continued to claim in the diplomatic arena to be the sole legitimate government of "China". In 1971,the United Nations expelled the ROC and replaced it with the PRC.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO),also known as Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO),Taipei Representative Office (TRO) or Taipei Mission,is an alternative diplomatic institution serving as a de facto embassy or a consulate of the Republic of China to exercise the foreign affairs and consular services in specific countries which have established formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The PRC denies the legitimacy of the ROC as a sovereign state and claims the ROC-controlled territories as an integral part of its territory. An exclusive mandate,namely One-China policy,requires that any country wishing to establish a diplomatic relationship with the PRC must first sever any formal relationship with the ROC. According to The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs,"non-recognition of the Taiwanese government is a prerequisite for conducting formal diplomatic relations with the PRC—in effect forcing other governments to choose between Beijing and Taipei." As a result,these countries only allow the ROC to establish representative offices instead of a fully-fledged embassy or consulate for the purpose of conducting practical bilateral relations without granting full diplomatic recognition.
The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was a brief armed conflict between the Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Nationalist Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The conflict focused on several groups of islands in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the ROC but were located only a few miles from mainland China.
Cross-Strait relations are the relations between China mainland and Taiwan.
The term "Two Chinas" refers to the geopolitical situation where two political entities exist under the name "China".
There are 122 diplomatic missions in Hong Kong,of which 61 are consulates-general and 61 are consulates and six officially recognised bodies in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong has the status of a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China,some consuls-general in Hong Kong report directly to their respective foreign ministries,rather than to their Embassies in Beijing.
The Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Los Angeles is the People's Republic of China's (PRC) diplomatic mission headquartered at 443 Shatto Place in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles,California,United States. The passport and visa office is on the third floor of 500 Shatto Place,Los Angeles,California. The consulate's service area is Southern California,Arizona,Hawaii,New Mexico,and the U.S. Pacific territories.
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Education Office 811 Holman St. Houston, TX 77002- Compare the street address to the map of Midtown in: "MIDTOWN MANAGEMENT DISTRICT SERVICE AND IMPROVEMENT PLAN AND ASSESSMENT PLAN FOR FISCAL YEARS 2015-2024" (PDF). Midtown Houston. p. 25. Retrieved July 25, 2020. - See "Exhibit A District Boundary Map" on PDF p. 25/25