Chinese state media have reacted strongly to reports of an alleged Chinese “electronic spy facility” in Cuba, alleging China’s “smear” jeopardizes an early visit to Beijing by senior US diplomat Antony Blinken.
TO Wall Street Journal The story on Thursday of last week claimed that China has invested in Cuba for the purpose of establishing a listening post there.
The report was first denied by White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby as “not accurate” but later confirmed on Saturday, by an anonymous Biden administration official, who told him political that China has operated a spy base out of Cuba since at least 2019, adding, “This is a problem that this administration inherited.”
The anonymous official said the base, which can pick up US military and commercial signals, is “an ongoing problem … not a new development.”
china recedes
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Friday that he was “not aware” of such an arrangement.
“It is well known that the United States is an expert at chasing shadows and meddling in the internal affairs of other countries,” he said, adding that the United States “has long illegally occupied Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for secret activities and imposed a blockade on Cuba for more than 60 years.
“The United States is the world champion of piracy and the superpower of surveillance.,” Wang said.
Chinese media claimed that China’s “media hype” and “smear” risked unfreezing Sino-US relations.
“America had unilaterally announced that senior diplomat Antony Blinken planned to visit China in February this year, but it was postponed due to the so-called ‘balloon incident,’” said the online version of the state spokesman, the People’s Daily.
“This time, the US media is once again claiming that Blinken will soon visit China, while broadcasting ‘fake news’ that China intends to build a spy facility in Cuba.”
Blinken’s visit is tentatively scheduled for June 18 in the hope that it may spark a thaw in Sino-US relations, but China has yet to agree to the visit and has rejected many recent overtures from Washington.
‘American politics is to blame’
The Chinese press went on to say that it was hard not to suspect that “some forces in the US political arena… do not want to see the relations between China and the US loosen up (and) constantly undermine the relationship between the two countries.” .
The tabloid in English global times added that recent events in the United States reminded “the The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, one of the fiercest scenes of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, (and) could be a new farce staged by the media and some US politicians. US to take the ‘advantage’ and pressure China into any possible dialogue”, a reference to Antony Blinken’s possible visit to China”.
Improving Sino-US relations still faces great challenges, Chinese media chorused.
Han Yang, a former Chinese foreign ministry diplomat now in Australia, told RFA that the United States had left itself open to Chinese action by allowing the Cuban exile community to take it hostage, giving Beijing the opportunity to establish operations in Florida. step.
“I think that…the embargoes have proven to be counterproductive and have created opportunities for China to invest in Cuba,” Yang said. “Sanctions don’t make any foreign policy sense, since the United States trades with many nations with worse human rights records than Cuba.”
Two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a joint statement on Thursday, even before the spy base was anonymously confirmed, it reported. political.
“The United States must respond to China’s continued brazen attacks on our nation’s security. We must be clear that it would be unacceptable for China to establish an intelligence facility within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of Florida and the United States, in an area also populated with key military installations and extensive shipping traffic,” the senators said. Mark Warner and Marco Rubio said.
A US expert told the Global Times on Sunday that while China is open to talks and will not put up barriers to communication, it is still possible for the Biden administration and US politicians to stumble.
“It is a very controversial issue in the US on how to deal with China and obviously the Biden administration’s decision-making on the issue is under strong impact from US domestic politics,” Lu Xiang said. , an expert in US studies and studies, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“By spreading baseless accusations, the Biden administration is actually trying to legitimize its close reconnaissance missions and spying activities in China’s territorial waters and airspace,” Lu said.
Edited by Mike Firn.
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