The consulate was opened by Vice President
George H. W. Bush in 1985 in an annex of the Jinjiang Hotel. The consulate moved in 1993 to its own compound at #4, Lingshiguan Lu, where it remained until its closure. In 1993, the
Peace Corps began a program in China, headquartered in Chengdu. A Peace Corps Director and staff were posted in the city. From its beginning, the primary mission of Peace Corps China has been to assist in the training of young Chinese citizens to become English teachers in the rapidly increasing number of junior high schools of the area, specifically, in the relatively undeveloped provinces of Gansu, Guizhou, and Sichuan, as well as the municipality of Chongqing. There were eighteen teachers in the first group of Peace Corps China Volunteers, and they served in five teacher training institutions. Now, twenty years later, there are about 150 Volunteers teaching in 90 institutions. The consulate compound came under attack in May 1999 by crowds enraged by the
US accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The Consul General's Residence was heavily damaged by fire. In 2008,
Condoleezza Rice was the first
US Secretary of State to visit the consulate. She came in response to the massive Sichuan earthquake that killed approximately 80,000 people. Secretary Rice visited a relief camp in
Dujiangyan, as well as an emergency water purification project donated by the United States. In February 2012, a Chinese official entered the US Consulate General in Chengdu, setting off a political scandal that led to the downfall of Chongqing Party Secretary
Bo Xilai in what is now known as the
Wang Lijun incident. The Consulate started with only six American officers and approximately 20 local employees. It was made up of an Executive Office (a Consul General and administrative assistant); a small office handling political, economic and commercial issues; a Consular Section; a Management Section, and what was then known as the U.S. Information Service. In 1985, each of the offices was covered by one American officer. The Consulate today has grown to 130 total staff. Approximately 100 of these are locally hired professional Chinese staff. On July 24, 2020, China revoked the license for the U.S. General Consulate in Chengdu, and ordered the general consulate to cease operations. This was in retaliation for the closure of the
Chinese consulate-general in Houston, Texas, on July 22, 2020. The consulate was closed at 10:00 AM on July 27, 2020. Afterwards, Chinese authorities entered through the front entrance and took it over. ==Bo Xilai corruption scandal==