The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in a assertion Monday that the Chengdu consulate closed at 10 a.m. “Pertinent Chinese authorities then entered from the main entrance and took in excess of,” the ministry stated in the assertion posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

More than the weekend, hundreds of individuals had collected exterior the US consulate in southwestern town of 16.5 million persons, taking selfies and waving Chinese flags. On Saturday, the US insignia was taken down, though on Sunday removal function started on a plaque exterior the embassy and shipping containers were being loaded on to vehicles, as staff ready for the consulate to be closed.

The Chinese federal government had supplied the Americans the similar time body of 72 hours to shut their Chengdu mission as Beijing had been afforded in Houston, the place final Tuesday, Washington instructed China to “stop all operations and gatherings.”

The Chinese International Ministry identified as that go an “unparalleled escalation” of ongoing tensions among the two countries.

“The existing problem concerning China and the United States is some thing China does not want to see, and the obligation rests solely with the United States,” the overseas ministry stated in the assertion.

As the deadline to close the Chinese diplomatic mission expired on Friday, US federal brokers entered the compound of the Chinese consulate in Houston in black SUVs and white vans.

Relations amongst the US and China have swiftly deteriorated in the earlier two months, amid the reciprocal consulate closures and the responsible plea of a Singaporean nationwide who admitted to spying for Beijing.

Speaking at the Nixon Library in California on Thursday, US Secretary of Point out Mike Pompeo blasted what he reported were being a long time of failed policy toward China.

“As President Trump has manufactured pretty obvious, we have to have a strategy that safeguards the American financial state and in truth our way of everyday living. The no cost world ought to triumph about this new tyranny,” Pompeo explained.

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“The truth is that our policies — and those people of other cost-free nations — resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the worldwide hands that had been feeding it. We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Get together exploit our totally free and open up modern society.”