
China orders U.S. to shut Chengdu consulate, retaliating for Houston - aminozuur
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-consulate/china-orders-u-s-to-shut-chengdu-consulate-retaliating-for-houston-idUSKCN24P09U
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chvid
Apparantly Chinese TV has live video streams of the embassy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9E09BekUH4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9E09BekUH4)

Presumably as a payback for the fire brigade showing up at the Houston
embassy.

To be honest. This is terrible. The US China-relations risk spiral out of
control and idiotic unrestricted nationalism will rule the day.

~~~
ummwhat
Its a well known dirty secret that consulates of all countries serve double
duty as offices for foreign intelligence services. The two possibilities I see
are either the US had intelligence of some particularly egregious use of this
not-so-secret arrangement or the current administration has just taken an
unthinkable sledgehammer to a serious diplomatic norm just to be "tough on
china". The fact that biden is polling well in Texas and Trump's whole schtick
in his ads is "Biden won't be hard on China", it seems likely to me that this
whole thing is a reckless campaign stunt.

While the Houston fire department did show up, they respected Chinese
sovereignty. In other words they did what a fire Dept is supposed to do for
embassy calls, and the calls were not unfounded. The only other case I know of
a consulate burning everything was the Soviets at the height of the Cuban
missile crisis.

~~~
chvid
Yes. This seems to be an escalation on all channels driven by internal US
politics. My worry is that a Trump administration faced with loosing an
election is willing to take too risky bets.

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shanghaikid
Is hacker news a political news site?

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pixxel
Sadly yes.

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baybal2
Why sadly? Political education is very important.

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chomp
There’s a lot of websites on the internet that are happy to discuss politics.
This one was created to have a narrow focus.

From the guidelines: “ Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or
sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of
pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV
news, it's probably off-topic.”
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
threatofrain
This is a privately owned property by an early-stage investment firm. Either
it is a property of whim or it is a property of business, or perhaps a
combination thereof.

Also, politics is the negotiation of power. I'm not sure why people wouldn't
want to discuss that, especially given the potency of tech to insert itself
into democratic politics. People who aren't in tech are certainly using tech
to discuss the intersection between tech in politics.

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odiroot
Chengdu consulate is a very peculiar place. It shows very well the
schizophrenia of a communist state.

You could walk past it and not even notice there's anything special about that
place. Yes it has tall, well protected walls around it, but so do many schools
in Chengdu (apparently kidnapping is/was a huge concern). The place also has
guards around it, but so do many office complexes. There's even one or two
armed policemen -- a normal view around any bigger transport hub as well.

At least 3 years ago, when I went there, there was not a single US flag
installed visible from the street. It's like CCP doesn't want (their own)
people to see, "US is there".

The giveaway for me was the private via consultancy/advisory offices on the
other side of the street. They all had USA flags in their windows.

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baybal2
Bo Xilai's defecting protege fled there. Chengdu was also a hotbed of cultural
revolution where a lot of party leaders (including close relatives some of
current leaders) were "suicided."

Other than that, Sichuan had a strong regional political culture, insular from
on in the capital.

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odiroot
I've also heard from the locals, Chengdu is (recently) the "San Francisco" of
China. You could be quite flamboyant without repressions.

It's also very liveable compared to other mega-cities I've been to.

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blackrock
Where do we go next?

Armed conflict against China? Nuclear warfare against China?

America has 5000 nuclear ICBM missiles. China has 300 nuclear ICBM missiles of
lesser quality and precision.

Is America looking to exchange a few American cities, in order to destroy the
entire Chinese civilization?

What American cities do you want to sacrifice, in order to meet your political
objectives?

~~~
tlear
Most likely supporting other opponents of PRC.

India just had a bunch of its soldiers murdered by a PRC attack. That is one.
Japan is the PRC boogeyman whenever they need to whip the mob up. Taiwan,
Vietnam etc

PRC behaviour resulted in it being surrounded with enemies instead of friends.

Last year US coordinated a deal together with Japan to have MHI help build
indigenous modern submarines for Taiwan. Prototype looks suspiciously like
Soryu class. Taiwan get half a dozen of those and their ambitions with Taiwan
are finished.

PRC has played hard ball for a long time. US finally starting to play by same
rules, it’s about time.

