The claim that China and Cuba had agreed to construct an electronic monitoring station on the island, which is about 100 miles from Florida and has U.S. military installations there, was refuted by the United States on Thursday.
The Defense Department is "not aware of China and Cuba developing any type of spy stations separately," according to Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, but it will keep an eye on the nations' ties.
“Certainly, we know that China and Cuba maintain a relationship of sorts, but when it comes to the specific activities outlined in the press reporting, again, based on the information we have, that is not accurate,” he told reporters.
The Wall Street Journal, which relied on anonymous American sources knowledgeable with highly secret intelligence, broke the story of the spy facility transaction first. China allegedly promised to pay billions of dollars for the facility, according to the claim.
The allegation was deemed "totally untrue and unfounded information," the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio of Cuba disagreed.
De Cossio believed the allegation to be a fabrication by American authorities, citing other hoaxes like the purported deployment of Cuban forces in Venezuela, which the Cuban government has categorically rejected.
“All of them are fallacies promoted with the malicious intention to justify the unprecedented reinforcement of the economic blockade, destabilization, and aggression against Cuba and to deceive public opinion in the United States and around the world,” he said.
Despite Cuba's sovereign rights in matters of defense, according to De Cossio, the island nation is a signatory to the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean, which condemns all foreign military presence there, including "the military base that illegally occupies a portion of our national territory in the province of Guantanamo."
“U.S. hostility against Cuba and the extreme and cruel measures that provoke humanitarian harm and punish the people of Cuba cannot be justified in any manner,” he added.
Intense tensions between the two administrations date back 60 years, and they got increasingly acrimonious after former President Donald Trump increased American sanctions on the island.
Some travel restrictions to the island under communist rule had been loosened under the Biden administration. Cuba, though, was still listed as a nation "not cooperating fully" in the US's battle against terrorism, the US stated last month.
The suspected China-Cuba spy station pact has drawn the ire of U.S. authorities, who claim that it would provide Chinese intelligence agencies access to electronic communications from the southeast of the country, including perhaps emails, phone conversations, and satellite transmission data.
It came after the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon by a U.S. fighter jet on February 4 after it was discovered to have flown over the American continent earlier this year.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said that the United States’ “ardent diplomatic pursuit of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] in the aftermath of the spy balloon has only emboldened CCP aggression.”
“We must make it clear that, as President [John] Kennedy said over 60 years ago on the eve of a previous crisis in Cuba, ‘one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission,’” he said.
According to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a longtime China critic, the implications of Beijing’s plan are grim.
“This move by Communist China presents grave threats to America’s national security that cannot be ignored. Every American should be up in arms about this. It’s not just spying on the government, which is bad enough, it’s spying on you, seeing your emails and your data,” he said in a statement.
