After initial and predictable denials, the White House confirmed the existence of a Chinese spy base just 90 miles off of the Florida coast.
An anonymous Biden administration official admitted to knowledge of the Cuban base after the Wall Street Journal confirmed its presence on Thursday. The official termed it “not a new development” and said the espionage center is an “ongoing matter.”
The Journal reported that China and Cuba reached an agreement in principle to build the electronic monitoring station on the island. Part of the agreement is Beijing paying billions to the beleaguered communist nation for the right to construct the eavesdropping facility.
The unnamed official revealed that the U.S. intelligence community has known of the base for some time.
BREAKING: Chinese spy station in Cuba has been found to be accurate, after the Biden admin denied it on Thursday.
According to the WSJ China made a secret agreement with Cuba to build a spy base on the island to gather intelligence from US bases along the southern seaboard.… pic.twitter.com/oHy5sJYwu4
— 🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 (@Travis_in_Flint) June 10, 2023
They said the Biden White House has endeavored to block Chinese efforts to expand their intelligence operations through diplomacy and other avenues. They also asserted that the issue dates back to before Biden’s inauguration.
After the Journal’s Thursday report, the administration initially said it was false. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC that “I’ve seen that press report, it’s not accurate.”
He went on to declare that the Biden administration is closely following Chinese activities around the globe.
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister, tweeted out a rejection of the report on Saturday. He labeled the news “slanderous speculation” that lacked “data or evidence.”
The official said Beijing scouted sites across the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific before settling on the obvious selection of Cuba.
Biden’s time in office has seen relations with China deteriorate, perhaps no lower than when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Taiwan in 2022. This led to weeks of intense military exercises by the communist nation around the island.
