/ world today news/ Extremely unpleasant information for the USA was thrown into the media a few days before the visit of the head of the State Department to Beijing. China is said to have some sort of “intelligence base” in Cuba capable of monitoring the US Southeast. And although all parties involved deny this, the American reaction was very nervous. Why is what is happening in any case in favor of Russia?
A Chinese espionage center appears in Cuba, 160 kilometers from the American Florida. This was reported by the American “Wall Street Journal”. According to the experts cited by the newspaper, this base will allow Beijing to eavesdrop on the entire southeast coast of the United States. That is, to do roughly what Russia did from its Lourdes base (closed in the early 2000s). And in exchange for receiving such an opportunity, Beijing has agreed to pay several billion dollars to Havana.
Cuban authorities deny everything. The island’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Carlos Fernandez de Cosio, called the Wall Street Journal’s report “absolutely false”, dictated by the desire to justify the long-standing economic embargo against Cuba. The Chinese also denied. A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said the United States was “spreading rumors and slander” while being “the most powerful hacking empire in the world”.
The curious thing is that this information is also denied by the American authorities. Officials have publicly said they know of no such base. In private, they tell journalists that China is not creating anything – after all, it has already created it. They say China has long used Cuba to spy on the United States and even upgraded its equipment on Liberty Island 2019.
“The Chinese threat at the doorstep”
The White House’s caution is understandable. If he officially admits the existence of an intelligence base, he will receive a powerful blow from criticism at the beginning of the election campaign. For both Democrats and Republicans – for missing a serious threat to national security.
“We are in a new Cold War – and it has arrived at our doorstep,” said Congressman Mike Gallagher. The former US ambassador to the UN, and now one of the presidential candidates from the Republican Party, Nikki Haley, also wrote about the “Chinese threat at the doorstep”. She urged Joe Biden to “wake up.”
The intelligence base in Cuba is perceived by American politicians as a serious threat – and not only because Beijing may be able to eavesdrop on military bases in the southeastern part of the United States. This base is only a seed, a basis for deepening military-political cooperation that could lead to Cuba giving China the ability to project power on America’s doorstep.
Not by building expensive aircraft carrier groups and deploying them in the Pacific Ocean, not by programs to build nuclear submarines, but much cheaper – a full-fledged military base located a few hundred kilometers from the American east coast. That is, in Cuba. At the same time, a base with both conventional weapons and possibly missiles.
For the United States, this is unacceptable because it still thinks like an island nation. That is, a country that is protected from the enemy by thousands of kilometers of water. Of course, the degree of this protection decreased after the acquisition of ballistic missiles by a number of countries, as well as the asymmetric methods of attack that appeared in terrorist organizations (for example, through hijacked airplanes, as happened on September 11, 2001). However, the United States remains extremely sensitive to any attempts by potential adversaries to deploy military equipment near American borders. That is why they are watching with such concern the development of Iranian-Venezuelan cooperation, as well as China’s plans to buy/modernize/build ports in South and Central America.
However, Cuba is closer than all of them in terms of distance. And the distance is not to Arizona or New Mexico, but to the most populated and economically important regions of the East Coast of the United States
Nthis brickitch
Formally, Havana strongly opposes any foreign military presence in the Caribbean. However, the Chinese are in no hurry.
Beijing, in its usual style, chooses the tactic of gradually increasing pressure, that is, slowly but steadily deepening cooperation with Cuba to the stage of a “military-political union with Chinese specifics.” The same one that China has already concluded with the Solomon Islands and a number of other countries.
“China is rejecting the bloc approach and entering into more flexible relations with other countries. Relations that allow China to develop military infrastructure on the territory of these countries, but without concluding alliances in the classical sense – with obligations for mutual protection, mutual support,” explains Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies . In fact, instead of protection guarantees, China offers these countries its investments and/or debt forgiveness to Chinese banks. And the parties accept this payment.
In theory, the US is well positioned to counter Chinese incursion into South and Central America. It is only necessary to normalize relations with local countries and stop terrorizing them because of their leftist ideology. And above all, to normalize relations with Cuba, that is, to lift the senseless and even harmful to the interests of the United States economic embargo, which brings so much suffering to the Cuban people.
However, the United States cannot take these simple steps. Partly because the Biden administration and a number of its supporters are obsessed with the human rights agenda. Partly because these kinds of decisions require consensus between Republicans and Democrats, and there is none. Partly because there is only consensus on the issue of refusal of Latin American countries to choose a sovereign policy. But the bottom line is that American foreign policy has lost its integrity and stability. All the decisions that the American president can now take can be reversed under his successor (as Trump did on the issue of Iran and Cuba – reversed Obama’s policy of increasing interaction with the island, brought back sanctions).
Therefore, America will most likely respond to China’s Cuban activity in its traditional way – sanctions, threats, cancellation of visits. Curiously, this scandal is somewhat reminiscent of the cases of the Chinese balloons released over the US in early 2023. Both are related to Chinese intelligence activity on American soil and erupt right before Anthony Blinken’s planned visit to China.
In the case of the balloons, negotiations were canceled – Blinken refused to fly. Apparently, a similar situation is now possible – the visit should take place on June 18, but as of June 12, the Chinese Foreign Ministry cannot confirm that the US Secretary of State will honor them with his presence.
And if Blinken doesn’t really show up again, then the Cuban story will become another brick in the US-China escalation. This will be seen by the Americans as crossing a red line – with subsequent willingness to respond (for example, on the Taiwan issue). Which, of course, is beneficial for Russia.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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