EFE (via 14ymedio), 13 June 2023 – Cuba described this Monday as “false” and “a new disinformation operation” the statements of the U.S. Government about the presence of a Chinese espionage center on the Island.
“The statements of the Secretary of State of the United States (Antony Blinken) about the presence of a Chinese espionage base in Cuba constitute a falsehood,” said the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, in a statement released on his Twitter account and official media.
The head of Cuban diplomacy pointed out that “Cuba’s position on this issue is clear and categorical” and stated that Blinken’s statements “lack support.”
“Cuba is not a threat to the United States, nor to any country. The United States applies a policy that daily threatens and punishes the Cuban population as a whole,” stressed the Cuban foreign minister.
He also said that Washington’s accusations are intended to “serve as a pretext to maintain the economic blockade against Cuba and the maximum pressure measures that have reinforced it in recent years.”
Secretary of State Blinken said on Monday during a press conference that Joe Biden’s government has “a strategy” to counter Chinese espionage in Cuba and other countries that is yielding results.
On Saturday, the U.S. Government declassified information from its intelligence services that claim that since 2019, or even earlier, China has had some “intelligence collection facilities,” a term that can include anything from centers with dozens of spies to a simple listening station equipped with an antenna.
According to those reports, when Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, he received information that China was trying to expand its intelligence services around the world with the creation of espionage centers in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Blinken made those statements days after The Wall Street Journal published that China and Cuba had agreed to build a large espionage center on the Island, a report that the Government of Havana categorically denied and that the White House initially described as “inexact.”
The Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, said that what was published by the New York newspaper was “unfounded information,” “slander” and “fallacies” to justify the U.S. sanctions against Cuba and destabilize the Island.
For its part, the Chinese government accused the United States of “spreading rumors and slander.”
One of the spokespersons for the White House, John Kirby, responded this Monday at a press conference to questions from EFE that “we have made our concerns clear,” when questioned whether there had been any communication with the Cuban Executive on this issue.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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