China slams US restrictions on diplomats as 'irrational'

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said it will make legitimate responses to the Trump administration’s latest restrictions on Chinese diplomats.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denounced the decision as “irrational” and “delusional.”

The US side has imposed fresh restrictions and barrier on Chinese diplomats in the US and such behavior seriously violated international law and rules and it seriously interrupted normal bilateral interactions and exchange, Hua said on Thursday.

“We strongly oppose it, and urge the US to correct its mistake and revoke this decision,” she added.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that senior US-based Chinese diplomats will now be required to get permission to visit American universities or meet with local government officials. Previously, under rules announced last fall, Chinese officials had been required only to notify the State Department of plans for such meetings.

Pompeo also said that Chinese diplomats will have now to get permission to host cultural events of more than 50 people outside of their diplomatic missions.

The State Department said it would also take action to help ensure all Chinese embassy and consular social media accounts were “properly identified.”

 Pompeo claimed the restrictions to be “reciprocal.”

Hua said China has always supported and provided necessary facilitation for foreign diplomatic and consular personnel, including those from the US, to perform their official duties in China. She said a stable and sound China-US relation will benefit both countries and the world, and both countries should always maintain open channels of communication.

On Wednesday, the Chinese Embassy in the US called the move “yet another unjustified restriction and barrier on Chinese diplomatic and consular personnel” that “runs counter to the self-proclaimed values of openness and freedom of the US side.”

“This has grossly trampled on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and China is firmly opposed to it,” the embassy said.

“We urge the US side to correct its mistake, revoke this decision and provide support and facilitation for Chinese diplomatic and consular personnel in the US to perform their duties as well,” it said in a statement.

Trump administration has since last year consistently ratcheted up restrictions and sanctions on Chinese officials, government agencies and companies.

In June, US also ordered the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston without prior notice.

On Tuesday, Pompeo said he was hopeful the dozens of Chinese-government funded Confucius Institute cultural centers on US campuses, which he accused of working to recruit “spies and collaborators,” would all be shut by the year end.

On Wednesday, the Washington-based Confucius Institute US Center, which was required last month to register as a foreign mission, said it had been mischaracterized by the State Department as a headquarters for Confucius Institutes. “Contrary to what people have heard from the State Department, CI programs in the US are independent of each other, set up and run by the schools that choose to set up Chinese language education, and staffed by people hired and supervised by those schools,” it said in a statement.