White House claims China has been spying on U.S for years with secret 'spy base'
A Biden administration official has claimed China has been spying on the US from Cuba for years and was operating a spy base there.
Speaking anonymously, the official said the US has been aware of efforts to set up intelligence-gathering operations around the globe for some time.
“When this administration took office in January 2021, we were briefed on a number of sensitive [People’s Republic of China] efforts around the world to expand its overseas logistics, basing, and collection infrastructure globally to allow the [People’s Liberation Army] to project and sustain military power at greater distance,” the administration official said.
The official claimed the Biden administration has stepped up efforts to thwart the Chinese push to expand its spying operations and believes it has made some progress through diplomacy and other unspecified action
Overview of hotels and the Capitol Building in Cuba (Getty Images)Scrutiny is on the Biden administration's handling of foreign spyware at the moment after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over the country in February, which was eventually shot down.
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Chinese spying from Cuba is been an “ongoing” matter for the US intelligence community and is “not a new development” the administration official said.
Tensions between the US and China have been fraught throughout Biden's term.
The relationship may have hit a nadir last year after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to democratically governed Taiwan. That visit, the first by a sitting House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 1997, led China, which claims the island as its territory, to launch military exercises around Taiwan.
Aerial file photo shows the Pentagon (AFP via Getty Images)The US uses reconnaissance planes near China and there were also further reports recently of Chinese 'police stations' in the US and prosecutors allege they were used to track down a pro-democracy activist of Chinese descent.
A total of 34 officers of China’s national police were charged by the Justice Department.
Both countries denied reports from intelligence sources last week that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was building a surveillance facility on the island, which would be just 100 miles south of the Florida coast.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station.
The Journal reported China planned to pay cash-strapped Cuba billions of dollars as part of the negotiations.
(AFP via Getty Images)The White House called the report inaccurate.
“This report is not accurate,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. “We have had real concerns about China’s relationship with Cuba, and we have been concerned since day one of the Administration about China’s activities in our hemisphere and around the world.
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"We are closely monitoring it and taking steps to counter it. We remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home and in the region."
US Defence Department spokesman Patrick Ryder added: "We are not aware of China and Cuba developing a new type of spy station."
There is a number of US military bases in the southeastern part of the country, allowing Beijing to monitor the nearby ship traffic and collect electronic communications if the reports are true.
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio called reports "totally untrue" and "slanders" at a press conference in the country's capital Havana on Thursday
De Cossio claimed the "fabricated" claims emerged only so the US could justify sanctions placed on Cuba and said Cuba rejects all foreign military bases on the island, including US-maintained Guantanamo Bay.
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