The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, said Monday that the Biden Administration “has a strategy to counter Chinese espionage in Cuba and other countries.”
”The president instructed us to address this challenge and that is what we have done. We have executed this strategy quietly, carefully, but in our opinion with results, ”said the senior official at a press conference in Washington together with his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani.
His statements come after The Wall Street Journal published that China and Cuba had agreed to build a large spy center on the island. The information was categorically denied by Havana. The White House initially called it “inaccurate.”
Cuba denies the existence of an alleged agreement with China to open an espionage center
Blinken said that when the Biden government came to power, it was discovered that China had been expanding its espionage activities around the world for some time, and that, in fact, it had expanded its intelligence facilities in Cuba in 2019.
According to the Secretary of State, the Trump Administration did not make “sufficient progress” in countering this espionage, and Biden ordered the application of “a more direct strategy.”
He said he did not want to give too many details about the plan in this regard, but mentioned that it has been based on diplomacy and that governments considering “hosting Chinese spy centers” have been contacted.
“Experts believe that our diplomatic activity has slowed down these efforts by China, something that we are monitoring very closely,” Blinken stressed.
The Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, assured that what was published by the US newspaper was “unfounded information”, “slander” and “fallacies” to justify the sanctions against Cuba and destabilize it.
The Chinese government accused the United States of “spreading rumors and slander.”
Efe/OnCuba.
