Reality Check of U.S. Unilateral Demand for China to Close Houston Consulate General
On July 21, the U.S. made a unilateral provocation by making the outrageous demand that China close its consulate general in Houston. By doing so, the U.S. has grossly violated international law, the basic norms of international relations, and relevant provisions of the China-U.S. Consular Convention, and gravely damaged China-U.S. relations. China has made a legitimate and necessary response.
The U.S. has been making pretexts and spreading lies about its decision. In a matter of just a few days, it has churned out different versions of the story. Lies, however, will always be lies even if they are repeated a thousand times. The different versions concocted by the U.S. have no factual base. It has failed to present even one single piece of solid evidence. It is important that we check U.S. false allegations vis-à-vis the facts. The purpose is to debunk the falsehoods and let people know the truth.
1. False: China has stolen intellectual property (IP) from the U.S., including novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine research achievements. Closing the Chinese consulate general is “to protect American IP and Americans’ private information.”
Fact: The U.S. has failed to back its allegation with any solid evidence. The reality is that China is a big country in terms of innovation and IP. It has become a main source driving IP growth in the world. On COVID-19 vaccine research and development (R&D), China has been at the forefront and has no need to steal from the U.S.
◆ China is a big country in terms of innovation and IP. It has kept strengthening the protection of scientific innovation and IP rights (IPRs). China is now among the world’s leading players in terms of the scale and growth rate of innovation input. Its R&D expenditure grew from 300.31 billion yuan ($37.68 billion) in 2006 to 1.96779 trillion yuan ($281 billion) in 2018, an average annual increase of 17 percent and rising from sixth to second in the world. China has the world’s biggest number of researchers. Its IP offices have
