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China wants to build a spy facility in Cuba, according to US media

2023-06-08T20:42:13.557Z

Highlights: According to The Wall Street Journal, the two countries have already reached an agreement. The White House says that information "is not correct". The U.S. Embassy in Havana has not commented so far on the information. If the project is confirmed, the base would be the second official Chinese settlement in a foreign country, after the military headquarters it maintains in Djibouti. It comes to light weeks after the passage of a Chinese hot air balloon over US territory. The plane was shot down in February by the US air force over territorial waters.


According to The Wall Street Journal, the two countries have already reached an agreement. The White House says that information "is not correct"


The U.S. Embassy in HavanaALEXANDRE MENEGHINI (REUTERS)

China is interested in building a new spy facility in Cuba that could be used to intercept communications in the United States, U.S. intelligence sources have told several national media. A headquarters of this type, less than 200 kilometers from the first power, would make available to Beijing the electronic communications of military bases and large industrial sectors located in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

China's interest, according to the sources, was detected several weeks ago. Havana and Beijing have opened talks on the matter, although it is not clear where they stand. Media such as Politico indicate that so far no agreement has been closed. The Wall Street Journal, the first to publish the news on Thursday, says that the negotiation has already concluded with a pact in principle and that the Chinese government has agreed to pay billions of dollars to the island. The White House, through the mouth of the spokesman of the National Security Council, John Kirby, has assured that the information of the newspaper "is not correct".

The revelation, says this newspaper, has set off alarms within the Joe Biden Administration, given Cuba's proximity to US territory. Beijing is Washington's main systemic rival, in all sorts of areas — diplomatic, economic, technological, military — and a Chinese facility with advanced capabilities could pose an unprecedented threat.

Relations between Washington and Havana are at a near standstill after President Donald Trump ended the era of "constructive engagement" under his predecessor Barack Obama. An incipient rapprochement after the arrival to the White House of Joe Biden has not come to bear real fruit.

The idea of a Chinese base in Cuba evokes echoes of the Cold War. One of the most tense moments in that era occurred when the United States detected Soviet missiles on the island in 1962, in what would go down in history as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Cuban Embassy in Washington has not commented so far on the information published in the US media. At a press conference at the Pentagon, the spokesman for the US Department of Defense, General Patrick Ryder, has not commented on the matter either.

Officials cited by The Wall Street Journal have described the intelligence as "compelling." The facilities, according to these sources, would allow Beijing to carry out intelligence collection operations on communications, including emails, phone calls and satellite transmissions. If the project is confirmed, the base would be the second official Chinese settlement in a foreign country, after the military headquarters it maintains in Djibouti.

Beijing's alleged interest in establishing an intelligence base in Cuba comes to light weeks after the passage of a Chinese hot air balloon over US territory. The plane was shot down in February by the US air force over territorial waters, amid accusations from Washington that the device fulfilled espionage functions. Washington also conducts intelligence-gathering operations in the vicinity of China.

The episode blew up a timid attempt at rapprochement between the two rivals, whose leaders, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, had agreed at the G-20 summit in Bali (Indonesia) in November last year to take steps to avoid a dangerous deterioration of the bilateral relationship. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his planned trip to Beijing.

Over the past month, however, the two nations had begun to take steps to try to get relations back on track. To two speeches of more conciliatory tone of the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, and the National Security Advisor of the White House, Jake Sullivan, were added a meeting, maintained in the greatest of secrecy until its celebration, between Sullivan himself and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Vienna.

The exchange of diplomatic visits continued with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao's trip to the United States to meet with his U.S. counterpart Gina Raimondo and Foreign Trade Representative Kathleen Tai. Two senior officials from the State Department and the National Security Council have traveled to Beijing in recent days to try to agree on a new date for Blinken's trip.

At the same time, relations between the militaries of the two countries remain frozen. The Pentagon failed to get Beijing to agree to a meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, in Singapore during the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security forum in which both participated. Washington warns that without military contacts, it is possible that an incident could degenerate into a crisis with unpredictable consequences. He has also warned of a "growing aggressiveness" of Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. In the last ten days there have been two clashes between patrols of both countries in the area, in air and sea respectively.

China's plans to build a surveillance station in Cuba, such as U.S. plans to sell nuclear submarines to Australia and expand its defense cooperation with Taiwan, are years-long efforts that show each side is preparing for an increasingly confrontational future," Eurasia Group said in a note.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-06-08

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