I Dunno
I’m getting emails about what’s going on at the Chinese consulate in Houston. I don’t have any inside information.
The State Department ordered it closed down “in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information.” So, that’s Mike Pompeo.
Last night the police and fire department were called to the scene in midtown Houston because people inside the courtyard of the consulate could be seen burning papers inside of trash cans.
They have until Friday afternoon to completely leave the building.
That’s all I know but I’ll update if I learn anything else.
For a historical perspective of the “pivot toward Asia” a developing policy that must have ‘conservatives’ gnashing their teeth over the ways in which Donnie* stumbles and bumbles in that direction with more than a few hits and misses, mumbles about intellectual property:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/22/weaponizing-intellectual-property/
Ironic that this maladministration is somewhat concerned about the Chinese embassy burning documents, when their response to similar Russian behavior was “be patient, we’ll fix this Vlad once we’re in office.”
1They haven’t been particularly good neighbors. I almost got run over by a consular car speeding down Montrose with an HPD car after it. It slipped into the consulate and the driver was probably snuck out of the country. And then those sticker bushes they put up to keep the every weekend protesters across the street. At least I won’t have to hold my breath when I drive around there for a while.
2Going by what I’ve seen – granted, mostly on Twitter – I’d speculate that they’ve been hacking into U.S. web sites and stealing (or trying to steal) U.S. intellectual property from inside the consulate. If that’s the case, then kicking them out is probably a good thing.
Knowing that the U.S. wants them gone, they’re burning all the classified documents that they can before they have to be out the door. That’s pretty much S.O.P. in such a situation.
3BFS, you are probably spot on.
The issue ostensibly revolves around China’s attempts to hack into research facilities that are working on cures/vaccines for the coronavirus. It appears that, along with Russia, China has been trying to steal medical intellectual property. Stealing intellectual property is not an unusual thing for China to be involved in, One might argue that they have a propensity for engaging in said behavior. Having said that this gives Trump and Pompeo the opportunity to throw some Chinese red meat to their followers. This undoubtedly has much to do with that as it does with intellectual property
There was a time when the United States had the kind of leader ship that would inform other nations that should we develop a vaccine we would make that research available to every other nation on the earth because pandemics are global. This however is no longer that time so it’s not terribly surprising that other nations are trying to hack into our research. Forgive me for stating the obvious but you might note that we have and keep the Russians out……
As to the Chinese burning documents within the confines of their embassy, there is nothing unusual in that behavior. Nation states routinely do this when they are being evicted from their embassies burning things is far more effective than shredding them and you don’t want to take the risk that another nation is going to access your secrets.
For what it’s worth, the United States did this when we were evacuated from Iraq, the Russians did this when we kick them out of there safe houses under Obama, do you remember that time when Michael Flynn was letting the Russians know they should just hang tight. So this behavior is fairly typical.
4Now DHS takes a nap? Wth Pompeo, give Chad Wolf a call before Houston burns.
“Firefighters responded to the consulate, located in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood, but weren’t allowed on the property. Due to an international agreement, they could not enter the premises without consent unless there was a threat to health and safety.” https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/chinese-consulate-houston-eviction-notice-fire-reported/285-b9902c83-09af-4bc3-92e0-9b98d0f4065c
Guess according to the maladministration graffiti in Portland is terrorism, while open barrel burning isn’t a health or safety. hazard.
5Again, a purposeful distraction from what the Golden Gibbon continues to do.As for sending armed military units to cities of over 50,000, why, folks, there’s nothing to see here. Just go on about your business.
This military intrusion stuff is just what it takes to shoot the Mayor or the local bishop who is trying to handle a peaceful protest (based on scripture). I can only imagine what will happen then.
6Without knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, computer hacking, digital and electronic theft, etc. I only have this to add:
I’m getting old, but not so old that burning paper documents in trash cans hasn’t gone completely out of style.
7The best way to dispose of documents is to shred, burn and then afters extinguishing stir the ashes.
Leave it to the Stasi for efficiency, except their industrial grade shredders burned out before they were done.
8forgot to add very small quantities of paper, a few checks or maybe encrypted notes? Tear into confetti and flush down the toilet or add to the used kitty litter. If the organs of state security are after you that bad you probably did not dig your hole deep enough :).
9Perhaps my understanding of the interwebz is off, but last I heard hacking a computer system doesn’t require physically touching the computer, or even being in the same city, country, or continent.
The Don was right about one thing – I am SOOOOOOOO tired of “winning.”
10@mollusk 10: You are right about computer hacking, but sometimes the olds ways are better, like paying off an employee. That kind of spying still requires the human touch. Only now, instead of a briefcase full of secret papers, they only need to walk out with a thumb drive.
11Grandma Ada @2 You’re absolutely right about them not being good neighbors. The consulate is on the way to my workplace, always interesting to see the line of people (applying for visas?) wrapped around the building or the protesters doing their best on the narrow sidewalk. One colleague always swore that his car radio got static as he passed the building. I never noticed it on my car radio but it makes perfectly good sense that they’d be blocking or interfering with signals.
It’s an ugly foreboding building which I doubt they’ll sell (not enough time to completely strip everything before Friday) so it’s probably just hulk there on Montrose Boulevard, falling into disrepair. Another eyesore in Houston, just what we need.
12This has been going on for decades. Forty years ago the Chinese government hired an Italian contractor who had built a licensed chemical plant in Italy, using proprietary technology owned by the company I worked for at the time, and paid the Italian contractor to build an unlicensed “Chinese copy” of the same plant in China. As far as I know it’s still there.
13The spying/hacking story is likely horse manure, not that the Chinese may not have been doing it, every embassy and consulate does from every country. US consulates in China do it, probably the Finnish embassy in Washington is a hot bed of Finnish intelligence agents.
Trump is tossing some pseudo-red-meat to the mob plus he and Pompeo are ticked off that the Chinese Gov’t will not let them ship 1000+ diplomats and families back to Wuhan without any testing and quarantine.
Why would the Chinese be so unreasonable to want to test and quarantineUS diplomats from the Covid-capital of the world?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-diplomats-excl-idUSKBN2426K7
14Could just be chaos-making. But maybe, just maybe, China is viewing Putin’s pro-Trump electoral fatf*cking, and threatening to jump in on the other side.
15@ Bill F 11 – True, there does remain a place for the trenchcoat squad. That said, back during the good old days everyone seemed able to do their spyin’ that way, too. I sincerely doubt that every flash drive in every briefcase or pocket on every outbound flight to a foreign destination gets enough inspection to know what’s on it.
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