What you're casually dismissing as "just a political move" seemed to be a very well understood target which required state department cooperation to act against.
> HOUSTON AS A GLOBAL S&T HUB 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, and referred 89 percent of the projects originating from the United States.56 During that time, the United States was the largest source of information technology projects targeted by Chinese S&T diplomats.57 From 2017 to 2019, the Houston Consulate cosponsored a series of “matchmaking” events with several Chinese technology transfer centers, attracting approximately three hundred U.S. businesses each year.58 Since the consulate’s closure in July 2020, the MOST bulletin of “international technical cooperation opportunities” has registered only one additional project from the United States, a virtual reality therapy company in Massachusetts.59
Houston is not a particularly important science and technology hub in the US. The idea that Houston would be the most important focus of Chinese industrial espionage is non-sensical.
> From 2017 to 2019, the Houston Consulate cosponsored a series of “matchmaking” events with several Chinese technology transfer centers, attracting approximately three hundred U.S. businesses each year.
This is a very good example of how completely normal diplomatic activity is being cast as somehow malign. The Chinese government seeks foreign investment. Part of that involves the type of public events this passage is describing, in which the government invites a bunch of companies to a trade fair and pitches the idea of investing in China. The US does this abroad. Pretty much everyone does. This document is trying to blur the line between espionage and normal diplomatic activity.
There is actual espionage that occurs out of embassies and consulates around the world. This isn't it.
>Houston is not a particularly important science and technology hub in the US.
I'm sorry, what? The city that hosts the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center is not a science and technology hub? There is science and technology outside of social media apps and internet ad surveillance tech.
> The city that hosts the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center is not a science and technology hub?
Yes, it's not a particularly important hub in the US. Boston, SF, and countless other cities are more important hubs. Having one space mission control center does not make a city into the foremost American science and technology hub.
The Trump administration decided to close down one Chinese consulate as a political message. They probably chose Houston because closing the consulate there is less disruptive than closing, say, the NY consulate. When the Chinese retaliated, they also chose a relatively unimportant US consulate to close.
Your response is absurd. You think China would only focus on a few cities? They likely have multiple efforts going in every major city all at the same time. They have more than enough money and motivation to do that. To dismiss Houston just because it’s not Silicon Valley is absurd. Any strategic advantage is still an advantage. They have the luxury of not having to worry about profits and losses like a corporation.
The document that was cited above claims that Houston was a major global hub of Chinese science and technology espionage. That's what's absurd.
Practically every consulate and embassy around the world is crawling with spies. "Diplomatic cover" is a standard way of sending spies to a foreign country. That's not why the US would close down a foreign embassy.
The closure of the Chinese embassy, with a big announcement and almost no forewarning, was meant as a political statement. It came in the middle of an escalating trade war, initiated by the Trump administration.
The post facto rationalizations about the Houston embassy being some extraordinary hotbed of espionage were absurd on their face, and I'm surprised by the level of naiveté in this thread towards these sorts of official government explanations for what are obviously political moves.
https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/chinas-foreign-techn...
> HOUSTON AS A GLOBAL S&T HUB 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, and referred 89 percent of the projects originating from the United States.56 During that time, the United States was the largest source of information technology projects targeted by Chinese S&T diplomats.57 From 2017 to 2019, the Houston Consulate cosponsored a series of “matchmaking” events with several Chinese technology transfer centers, attracting approximately three hundred U.S. businesses each year.58 Since the consulate’s closure in July 2020, the MOST bulletin of “international technical cooperation opportunities” has registered only one additional project from the United States, a virtual reality therapy company in Massachusetts.59