(Havana) Cuba on Thursday called “false and unfounded” press reports on a supposed agreement allowing China to set up a spy base on the communist island, while the White House assured that they were “not accurate”.
“The American Journal wall street journal published totally untrue and unfounded information on June 8 that there is an agreement between Cuba and China in military matters for the installation of a supposed spy base,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, in a statement read to the press in Havana.
Cuba “rejects any foreign military presence” in Latin America, “including the numerous military bases and American troops”, added the minister, considering that “slanders of this type are frequently fabricated by United States officials”.
According to wall street journal (WSJ), which cites anonymous American sources, a secret agreement would provide for the installation of a wiretapping station on this Caribbean island about 200 km from the coast of Florida, where major American military bases are located.
The economic daily adds that China, with which the United States is in fierce competition, should pay “several billion dollars” to Cuba to build this installation.
The American channel CNN also reported such an agreement citing American “sources close to intelligence”. “The United States has learned about this project over the past few weeks,” according to CNN, but “it’s unclear if China has started building the monitoring facility yet.”
The White House assured Thursday that information from the WSJ were inaccurate.
“I saw the press article. That’s not accurate,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC.
“What I can tell you is that our administration has been concerned from day one about China’s influence activities around the world, and particularly in this hemisphere and in this region,” Mr. Kirby.
“We are monitoring this very closely,” he added.
“According to the information we have, this is not correct. We have no knowledge of the installation, by China and Cuba, of any type of spy base”, also reacted during a daily press briefing the spokesman of the Pentagon, General Pat Ryder, who assured that the United States was “permanently” monitoring relations between Beijing and Havana.
‘Deeply troubled’
Democratic Senator Mark Warner and his Republican colleague Marco Rubio, who head the US Senate Intelligence Committee, said they were “deeply disturbed” by the article. wall street journal.
“The United States must respond to China’s ongoing brazen attacks on our national security,” they said in a statement.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is leading an expansion of China’s military presence across the globe in an effort to compete with the US military, which is present on every continent.
But the installation of a base in Cuba, as close as possible to the coast of Florida, would constitute a new step for Beijing and would be seen by Washington as an unprecedented threat to its territory.
“We must be firm that a Chinese installation of spy infrastructure 160 km from Florida and the United States would be unacceptable,” urged the senators.
During the Cold War, the Soviets had electronic spy installations on Cuba.
But in 1962, the United States observed missile launch pads there, within range of the American coast. For a few days, the threat of an open – and nuclear – conflict between the two superpowers reached its climax.
The USSR finally gives up on its project and the United States withdraws its missiles from Turkey.
In January and February, a Chinese balloon described by Washington as a “spy” flew over the United States before an American fighter shot it down.