China Orders Closure Of US Consulate In Chengdu

China said on Friday it had revoked the licence for the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu, in retaliation for the closure of China's Houston consulate earlier this week.

The move is a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The current situation in China-US relations is not what China desires to see, and the US is responsible for all this," the statement said.

“We once again urge the United States to immediately retract its wrong decision and create necessary conditions for bringing the bilateral relationship back on track,” it added.

Tensions have been escalating on multiple fronts between the world's two biggest economies, deteriorating further after Washington ordered the closure of the Houston consulate on Tuesday within 72 hours. China had threatened to retaliate if the US failed to withdraw the decision.

The Trump administration alleged Chinese agents tried to steal data from facilities in Texas including, the Texas A&M medical system.

The Chengdu consulate was established in 1985, and has around 200 staff with approximately 150 locally hired Chinese staff, according to its website.

The US has an embassy in Beijing and consulates in five mainland cities – Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Wuhan. It also has a consulate in Hong Kong.

The Chengdu consulate became notorious in 2012 when Wang Lijun, the police chief of nearby Chongqing city, attempted to defect there, a trigger point in a dramatic scandal that brought down rising political star Bo Xilai.

Social media users on the mainland, who had denounced the US order to close the Houston mission, applauded the response.

The comment, "let's renovate it into a hotpot restaurant!", a reference to a popular dish in Chengdu, got 100,000 likes on the Weibo account of state broadcaster CCTV. (AP, AFP and Reuters)

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