US warns of Chinese military installations in Cuba

China and Cuba are close to an agreement to host a military training base for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on the island. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this on June 20, citing sources in the American state apparatus and US intelligence data. According to the publication, the negotiations are at an advanced stage, which causes great concern in Washington. If negotiations are successful, China will be able to permanently deploy troops just 160 km from the American coast, and will also intensify intelligence activities against the United States.

The administration of President Joe Biden, writes the WSJ, is already in contact with Havana on this issue. According to the publication’s sources, Washington is making efforts to prevent the Cubans from reaching an agreement with China. Earlier in the dialogue between the United States and Cuba, the topic of the Chinese military presence on the island was already raised. On June 8, the WSJ wrote that China had deployed its electronic intelligence facility in Cuba. For the United States, this was all the more painful because the object was able to monitor the southeastern states, where most of the American military bases are located. Such statements were followed by a harsh reaction from Havana – Cuban Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said that the WSJ was spreading “false and unfounded” information. The US official response was muted, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying the WSJ data was “inaccurate.”

China’s actions in Cuba may be a “geographical response” to US support for Taiwan, WSJ sources say. The United States provides military assistance to Taiwan, and in 2022, Biden openly declared twice that the United States was ready to defend the island in the event of a Chinese attack.

On June 10, Politico, citing a US official, wrote that China began using Cuba for intelligence gathering even before the start of Biden’s presidential term. “China in 2019 upgraded its intelligence gathering facilities in Cuba. This is fully documented in the intelligence reports,” the Politico source stressed. According to him, Biden was informed about the actions of the PRC in Cuba, and the president decided to oppose the Chinese military presence on the island through diplomacy. This paid off – “our efforts in the field of diplomacy have slowed down the PRC,” the source emphasized. Following Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to China, the State Department issued a press release stating that the parties discussed “US concerns about China’s intelligence activities in Cuba.”

In 1967, a Soviet electronic intelligence center was located in the Havana suburb of Lourdes, which played a significant role in obtaining intelligence during the Cold War. After the collapse of the USSR, up to 1,500 people could be located there, and its rent cost $ 100 million a year in the form of supplies of goods at special inflated prices. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, President Vladimir Putin, as a gesture towards the United States, decided to close the facility in Lourdes. There was also a Soviet training motorized rifle brigade in Cuba, withdrawn by decision of the Russian leadership in 1992.

With a greater degree of probability, the intelligence data cited by such an authoritative publication as the WSJ are true, said Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at the Institute for the US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. China can well afford not only to build a base, but also to provide economic benefits to Cuba in exchange for its presence. Such news also has an important domestic political dimension – according to the expert, the WSJ is trying to cast a shadow on the Chinese policy of the Biden administration. The current US leadership is not looking for a major confrontation with China, and all of the administration’s anti-Chinese measures, such as trade and technology restrictions, irritate Beijing at best. During his presidency, Biden was unable to pick up serious trump cards to “contain China.” The White House does not exert tough pressure on China, which makes pro-Republican business circles, whose interests are expressed by the WSJ, dissatisfied. As a result, the news about the Chinese training base in Cuba can be interpreted as a failure of Biden’s Chinese policy, the expert concludes.

The possibilities of the United States to put pressure on China are economically very modest, but Washington’s extremely negative reaction to the Cuban base of the PRC is inevitable, Yana Leksyutina, professor at St Petersburg University, is sure. The fact that the news about the Chinese camp in Cuba coincided with the talks between Xi Jinping and Blinken demonstrates the multi-level nature of the US-China relationship. At the highest official level, Beijing and Washington will negotiate and give the appearance that relations are moving towards normalization. In fact, in the next 10 years, the trend in bilateral relations will be downward, and rivals in practice will try to strengthen their position. According to the expert, China, despite all the statements about normalization, will not refuse to protect its strategic interests. The United States, in turn, will not leave this unanswered – Leksyutina suggests that Washington’s reaction to the Cuban initiative of China will be the expansion of the American presence in the Asia-Pacific region.