US gives China 72 hours to shut Houston Consulate General; accounts claim docs being burnt

Editor of the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece Global Times, Hu Xijin, on Wednesday claimed that the US has asked China to close its Consulate General in Houston in 72 hours and called it a "crazy move." This comes after officials in Houston, Texas responded to a fire in the area only to realise that the office of the Consulate General of China was reportedly burning documents in the courtyard of the premises on Tuesday night, according to US local media reports.

Dozens of fire responders arrived at the scene

Houston Police Department said they began receiving reports that documents were being burned just after 8 p.m. at 3417 Montrose Boulevard where the consulate is located. Dozens of Houston first responders arrived at the scene but they did not go into the property, click2houston.com reported.

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A Houston police source told KPRC 2 that the consulate and a compound on Almeda Road, where many employees of the consulate live, are being evicted on Friday at 4 p.m.

The incident comes amid deteriorating diplomatic relations between the two countries. It is a developing story.

US accuses China of global hacking attempt

Hackers working with the Chinese government targeted firms developing vaccines for the Coronavirus and stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from companies across the world, the Justice Department said Tuesday as it announced criminal charges.

According to an Associated Press report, the indictment does not accuse the two Chinese defendants of actually obtaining the Coronavirus research, but it does underscore the extent to which scientific innovation has been a top target for foreign governments and criminal hackers looking to know what American companies are developing during the pandemic.

In this case, the hackers researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of biotech firms and diagnostic companies that were developing vaccines and testing kits and researching antiviral drugs. The charges are the latest in a series of aggressive Trump administration actions targeting China.

The indictment includes trade secret theft and wire fraud conspiracy charges against the hackers, former classmates at an electrical engineering college who prosecutors say worked together for more than a decade targeting high-tech companies in more than 10 countries.

The hackers, identified as Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, stole information not only for their personal profit but also research and technology that they knew would be of value to the Chinese government, prosecutors say. In some instances, the indictment says, they provided an officer for a Chinese intelligence service with whom they worked email accounts and passwords belonging to clergymen, dissidents and pro-democracy activists who could then be targeted.

The officer gave help of his own, providing malicious software after one of the hackers struggled to compromise the mail server of a Burmese human rights group. The two defendants are not in custody, and federal officials conceded Tuesday that they were not likely to step foot in an American courtroom.

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(With AP inputs)