Before Blinken’s visit to China.. Beijing refutes US accusations of espionage and considers them “rumors and defamation.”

China has described what was reported by US media regarding China’s construction of spy facilities in Cuba as “self-contradictions”.

“Rumours and slander” cannot destroy the friendship between China and Cuba, said Wang Wenbin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

These statements come at a time when it was reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will visit China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman denied having any information to provide about it.

An official in the administration of US President Joe Biden said a few days ago that China was spying on the United States from a base in Cuba, and that this base was established before the Biden administration assumed its duties, indicating that China had modernized the intelligence-gathering facilities there in 2019.

The official added that China’s espionage efforts are an ongoing concern, and that the US administration is taking steps to deal with it. He stressed that China will seek to strengthen its presence in Cuba, but Washington will continue to work to disrupt it, as he put it.

However, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, John Kirby, denied the validity of the reports that spoke about this issue, and said in statements, “I saw that report. It is not accurate.”

“What I can say is that we’ve been concerned since day one of this administration about Chinese influence activities around the world, certainly in this hemisphere, in this region,” he added. “We’re watching that very closely.”

eavesdropping facility

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cuba had reached a secret agreement to build an electronic eavesdropping facility on the Caribbean island.

The newspaper said that the eavesdropping facility in Cuba – which is located about 100 miles (160 km) from Florida, USA – will allow the Chinese intelligence services to obtain electronic communications throughout the southeastern United States, where many military bases are located, in addition to monitoring the movement of ships. American.

The newspaper quoted officials – whom it described as familiar with the matter – that China had agreed to pay several billion dollars to Cuba, which is in financial difficulty, to allow it to build the eavesdropping station, and that the two countries had reached an agreement in principle.

In turn, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) Pat Riley described the Wall Street Journal report as inaccurate, and said, “We have no knowledge of China and Cuba building any spying station of any kind,” adding that “the relations that these two countries establish are something we constantly monitor.” .

Cuba also denied the matter, as Carlos Fernandez de Cosio, the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, said in a statement he read to the press, last Thursday, that the American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” published on the eighth of June this information completely false and baseless. Health reports that there is an agreement between Cuba and China in the military field to establish a supposed spy base.

He added that Cuba rejects any foreign military presence in Latin America, including the many military bases and (affiliated) forces of the United States, considering that “slanders of this kind are often fabricated by American officials.”