A necessary and legitimate response. The world, for the past three days, had been speculating about which US consulate China would order to close after the US State Department asked China on Tuesday to shut down its consulate in Houston, Texas, within 72 hours.

That China would respond to the United States' provocative move, which marks a new diplomatic low, was a foregone conclusion－for that is the universally accepted practice under the reciprocity principle of diplomacy. More important, Washington's increasingly offensive moves on the pretext of safeguarding national security, or protecting "American intellectual property" or the "private information" of US citizens deserve a befitting response lest its belief in its infallibility becomes a chronic ailment.

That's why China's decision on Friday ordering the closure of the US consulate in Chengdu, Sichuan province, didn't create ripples around the world, although the international community is worried that tensions between the two countries are escalating due to the whimsical moves of the US.

Despite the US' moves against China－sabotaging the most important bilateral relationship in the world－and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continuing his anti-China tirade in a speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, on Friday, just a day after returning from his latest anti-China crusade in Europe, Beijing has been exercising considerable restraint.

For China is well aware that it is not the American people, whose goodwill for their Chinese counterparts remains unchanged, as Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai told the media earlier this week, but the incumbent US administration's failure to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic and its manic zeal to rule the US for four more years that have stoked McCarthyist intolerance against China.

Even though Sino-US ties have hit a historical low and, as many have alleged, the US seems intent on drawing China into the vortex of a cold war, Beijing is in no mood to return the favor－and thus fall prey to Washington's ploy. Simply because it believes peace, stability, cooperation and development are the demand of the times, and US decision-makers will sooner or later return to their senses.

The world is no longer the US' oyster. And it got a taste of that as even its allies refused to act against their conscience when Washington tried to marshal them to contain China. They know that China's economic development, which has helped it lift about 800 million people out of poverty and become the world's second-largest economy, has also brought tangible benefits to the rest of the world and helped improve global governance.

The international community knows the Washington-created "China threat" theory is a ruse to interfere in China's internal affairs and check its rise.

And only those ready to stake their future on the current US administration are likely to present themselves on the "America first" altar.