Washington communicated directly to Havana about possible Chinese espionage operations in Cuban territory this Monday, June 12. White House spokesman John Kirby assured that the bilateral relationship with China is tense at the moment, but President Joe Biden promised to keep “the lines of communication open.”
First modification:
Despite the fact that the Government of Cuba rejects the accusations of hosting an espionage base in its territory, this Monday, June 12, Washington assured that it is carrying out a “silent strategy” to counteract the alleged attempts by Beijing to install said bases in the island.
“(President Biden) gave us instructions to address this challenge and that is what we have done. We have executed this strategy quietly, carefully, but in our view with results,” said US Secretary of State Anthony. Blinken, at a press conference.
Blinken’s words refer to information published by ‘The Wall Street Journal’. On June 8, this media outlet disclosed information that China and Cuba possibly had an agreement to set up an espionage base on the island in exchange for a million-dollar amount of money.
China will pay Cuba to host a secret spy base, where Beijing could monitor American ships and electronic communications across the southeastern US https://t.co/KR8feLUc5a
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 8, 2023
The text highlights that the alleged agreement gave Beijing access to intercept thousands of electronic communications in Florida and the entire southern coast of the United States, with the possibility of monitoring the movement of ships and other information gathering strategies. China denied the accusations and Cuba did the same.
“As we all know, spreading rumors and slander is a common US tactic, and it is patent for the US to wantonly interfere in other countries’ internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Wenbin said.
For his part, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Carlos de Cossio, said in a statement that the information published by the American newspaper is “totally mendacious and unfounded.” And he added: “We reject any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, including that of numerous United States military bases and troops, especially the military base that illegally occupies a portion of the national territory in the province of Guantanamo.”
The Cuban foreign minister also published his response to the accusations on his Twitter account on Monday. Bruno Rodríguez pointed out that Cuba’s position is “clear and categorical” and that the US accusations “have no basis.”
The affirmations of the Secretary of State of the United States about the presence of a Chinese spy base in Cuba constitute a falsehood.
The position of #Cuba on this subject is clear and categorical.
Those statements are unsubstantiated. pic.twitter.com/RQvXVtTpM3
— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) June 12, 2023
More accusations against Cuba
On Sunday, an anonymous Biden Administration official assured the AP news agency that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019.
The anonymous source said that the US intelligence community has been aware of China’s spying from Cuba and of “a greater effort to establish intelligence-gathering operations around the world.”
The official also explained that efforts to thwart any attempt by China to expand its spying operations have intensified during Biden’s tenure. In addition, he affirmed that progress has been made on these operations through diplomacy and other actions that he did not specify.
According to additional information provided to the AP, President Biden’s security team was briefed by the intelligence community shortly after taking office in January 2021 about a series of Chinese efforts to increase its influence in parts of the world where it has not had as much access in the past.
We learned that Beijing has tried to expand logistics, base infrastructure and information gathering as part of the People’s Liberation Army’s attempt to increase its influence, the official said.
The information is known in the framework of a mandate that has sustained one of the most tense relations with China in the last decade.
One of the lowest points in the relationship between the US and China occurred when the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own under the premise of ‘one China’.
That visit, the first by a House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 1997, prompted China to launch military exercises around Taiwan.
Later, the US shot down what it claimed to be a Chinese spy balloon that had crossed over US territory. Beijing then leveled similar accusations at Washington.
Recently, their discussions have been around the Chinese social network TikTok, which has been classified as a tool for Beijing to access sensitive information from the United States. Washington banned its officials from having the app on their devices and then the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom and other Western countries followed in the footsteps of the White House.
With Reuters, AP and local media
