China warned the U.S. to think "carefully" about where their relationship was heading, in response to a question about their trade deal that came amid a flare in tensions over the forced closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston.
"China's position on the China-U.S. relationship is clear and consistent," Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily briefing in Beijing on Thursday. "As to which direction this relationship is heading, it's an issue for the U.S. to think about carefully."
His comments came hours after Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin said Beijing would likely respond to its Houston mission's shuttering with moves that inflict more pain on the U.S. than just closing its operation in Wuhan -- including potential cuts to its larger Hong Kong consulate. Hu's posts are closely watched as they have in the past preceded official Chinese government announcements.
Wang declined to elaborate on China's retaliation plans, only repeating Beijing's vow to "take resolute and justified measure to ensure our legitimate rights and interests."
The shut down represents one of the biggest threats in years to relations between the U.S. and China, which have worsened in recent months on fronts ranging from trade to the early handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Wang called the Houston closure a "serious sabotage" of China-U.S. relations and said it was "breaking down the friendship bridge between the two sides."
He had pointed out on Wednesday that the number of U.S. diplomatic missions and staff in China far exceeded that of China's presence in America, before saying Beijing would retaliate if the U.S. didn't reverse its decision on Houston.
The South China Morning Post reported earlier Thursday that China would move to close the U.S. consulate in the southwest city of Chengdu in retaliation for the Houston decision, citing a source briefed on the decision.
The U.S. consulate in Chengdu opened in 1985 and covered Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Chongqing in China's southeastern region. It also covers Tibet, whose status as an autonomous region of China is a longtime thorn in relations between the world's two largest economies.
The Chengdu mission is also where former Chongqing city police chief Wang Lijun fled in 2012 with evidence linking the family of his boss, the once high-flying Bo Xilai, to the death of British businessman Neil Heywood. Those allegations touched off a scandal that roiled the Chinese political establishment and saw then-Chongqing party secretary Bo ousted and his wife convicted of Heywood's murder.
"The U.S. has over 1,000 staff at the Hong Kong consulate," Hu, the Communist Party newspaper editor, wrote in a post on Chinese social media Thursday. "What are so many people doing? It is a spy center." He said that cutting its staff to 100 or 200 people could be one of the many options available to China.
Hu also wrote that the U.S. consulate in Wuhan -- the mainland city at the early epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic -- has already started making preparations, saying the Chinese mission in Houston only gave 72 hours to close causing great inconvenience. He didn't elaborate or say where he got the information.
Closing the Wuhan consulate would thus be too easy, and the U.S. sense of pain would not be the same as that felt by Chinese diplomats leaving Houston, Hu said.
"Therefore, when China makes a retaliatory move, it is very likely to jump out of the U.S.'s present battlefield and start at a place the makes the U.S. feel more pain and catches it by surprise," he wrote.