China has had an active spy base in Cuba since at least 2019 as part of Beijing’s efforts to improve its intelligence-gathering capabilities globally, a Joe Biden administration official has said.
The US intelligence community has long been aware of China’s spying from Cuba and Beijing’s attempts to establish intelligence-gathering centers around the world, said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized. to make statements on the matter.
The Biden Executive has intensified its measures to prevent China from expanding its espionage operations, although it considers that it has made some progress through diplomatic channels and through other unspecified measures, said the official informed of federal intelligence actions on the matter.
The existence of a Chinese spy base was confirmed after The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic intercept station on Cuban soil. According to the newspaper, China plans to pay billions of dollars to Cuba as part of the negotiations at a time when the island is short of cash.
The White House called it inaccurate. “I already saw the article, it is inaccurate,” the spokesman for the White House National Security Council, John Kirby, settled on Thursday in an interview with MSNBC. “What I can tell you is that we have been concerned since day one of this administration about China’s influence activities around the world; certainly in this hemisphere and this region, we are watching very closely.”
The US intelligence community had determined that Chinese espionage from Cuba has been an “ongoing” issue and “not a new occurrence,” the source said. Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío also refuted the article in a tweet on Saturday. The official said that he continues the smear campaign promoted by certain media to cause damage and alarm without supporting what they propagate with data or evidence.
The intelligence community informed Biden’s national security team – soon after he took office in January 2021 – about the number of sensitive Chinese actions around the world where Beijing was considering expanding its logistics, its bases and its collection infrastructure inside the People’s Liberation Army’s attempts to expand its influence, the official said.
Chinese authorities examined sites spanning the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. The effort included studying the current collection facilities in Cuba, while China expanded its espionage activities on the island in 2019, according to the official.
The United States and China have had strong tensions during the Biden government. Relations between Washington and Beijing hit their lowest level last year after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited the democratic island of Taiwan. Because of the visit, the first by a female House speaker since Newt Gingrich’s in 1997, China has launched military exercises around Taiwan, which it considers part of its territory.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing further escalated this year after the United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had crossed American territory. China was also furious when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States last month and met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to travel to China next week. This visit was to take place earlier but was canceled when the balloon flew over the United States. Blinken is scheduled to be in Beijing on June 18 to meet with Chinese officials, according to US sources who requested anonymity on Friday. Neither the State Department nor the Chinese Foreign Ministry have confirmed the trip.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
