The WSJ Story behind China's Houston Consulate Closure

choi

(1) Yesterday's news first.
(a) Press release: Chinese National Charged with Destroying Hard Drive During FBI Investigation into the Possible Transfer of Sensitive Software to China. Office of Public Affairs, US Department of Justice, Aug 28, 2020
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/c ... n-possible-transfer
(GUAN Lei)

Note: People's Liberation Army General Staff Department (GSD; 1954–2016)  中国人民解放军总参谋部

(b) Press release: US Attorney's Office for Western District of Virginia, US Department of Justice, Aug 28, 2020
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdv ... -computer-intrusion
(Haizhou HU)

Note: "United States Attorney Thomas T. Cullen and David W Archey, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Richmond Division announced the arrest"
(i) United States Attorney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney
(section 5 List of current U.S. Attorneys' offices)

Quote: "There are 93 US Attorney offices located throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. One US Attorney is assigned to each of the judicial districts, with the exception of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands where a single US Attorney serves both districts [therefore there are 94 United States District Courts].
(ii) Federal Bureau of Investigation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation
("maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation ['These resident agencies are considered to be part of the primary field offices': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FBI_field_offices")

FBI has two field offices in Virginia: Norfolk and Richmond. The former is based in City of Chesapeake, Virginia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake,_Virginia
, one of whose northern neighbor is City of Norfolk, Virginia.

For comparison, Virginia has two districts: United States District Court for Eastern District of Virginia and United States District Court for Western District of Virginia, corresponding to US Attorney's office in each. Of note, US District Court for Eastern District of Virginia is based in Alexandria with divisions in Richmond (capital of Virginia; with population of 230k, compared with Alexandria's 160k, both of 2019) and Norfolk.


(2) Kate O'Keefe and Aruna Viswanatha, China Consulate Fight Tied to Military; Diplomats helped researchers evade FBI scrutiny, US says, spurring Houston closure. Wall Street Journal, Aug 26, 2020, at page A1 (front page).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chi ... -s-says-11598379136
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/w ... -s-says/ar-BB18mtUS

Note:
(a) WSJ places the article behind paywall.
(b) SONG Chen 宋琛; ZHAO Kaikai 赵凯凯; TANG Juan 唐娟.