The US conveys concern to the Cuban regime about hosting China's spy base

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States has taken steps to "mitigate" the threat of Chinese espionage activities, acknowledging that relations between Washington and Beijing are "tense."

9 | 12/06/2023 - 8:24pm (GMT-5)

The United States expressed its concern to the Cuban government about the fact that Cuba is hostingChinese spy operations on its territory.

"We have made our concerns known," the National Security Council spokesman said Monday.John Kirby, at a press conference at the White House.

Kirby said the United States has taken steps to "mitigate" the threat of Chinese espionage activities, acknowledging that relations between Washington and Beijing are "tense."

"We were as forthcoming as we should have been at the time the stories first appeared. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to take it as seriously as we do. Clearly there are one or several sources out there who think it is beneficial in some way making this kind of information available to the public. And it absolutely is," Kirby said.

He also reaffirmed comments from the White House and the Pentagon, calling initial reports about Chinese efforts to establish a new spy base in Cuba "inaccurate."

"The original information, as we said, was inaccurate. We did the best we could at the time to be as forthcoming as we could," he said.

The spokesman stated that he did not expect that the recent information about a Chinese spy base in Cuba would affect the visit that the Secretary of State,Antony Blinken, is scheduled to travel to China this week.

For his part, Blinken told reporters on Monday that China's efforts in Cuba were part of a global push by Beijing to expand its presence abroad, but the United States' actions since Biden came to power in January 2021 they had "stopped this effort."

The administration ofJoe Biden confirmed this Saturday the existence of the base of Chinese electronic espionage on the island, but clarified that this is a problem of knowledge of the United States and said that the facility has been in operation since at least 2019.

"This is a problem that this administration inherited," said a senior government official. “The Chinese base is already operational and was not established under the intelligence supervision of this administration.”

However, the Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs,Carlos Fernández de Cossío, denied that there is an agreement military between the island and China for the installation of an alleged spy base.