US says it had to declassify information before confirming Chinese spy base in Cuba

White House worked to ‘get some context downgraded’ before revealing that the Cuban base has existed since 2019
Information about China-Cuba cooperation is not expected to derail Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing

US-China relations

Robert Delaneyin Washington

Published: 6:01am, 13 Jun 2023

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Officials in US President Joe Biden’s administration scrambled to downgrade classified information about an alleged Chinese spy base in Cuba in an effort to correct what it called inaccurate reporting on the matter, a senior official said on Monday.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said information about the base was too sensitive to provide guidance for The Wall Street Journal, which first reported that Beijing and Havana had struck a secret agreement for a facility on the island that could capture electronic transmissions in the southeastern US.

A White House official confirmed over the weekend that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019. Beijing’s foreign ministry has denied any knowledge of such a facility and called Washington out for “secretive activities” in Cuba.

Havana also denied The Journal’s report, with Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío calling the newspaper’s information “totally mendacious and unfounded.”

Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernández de Cossío denies reports of a Chinese spy base on the island. Photo: Reuters

Reports of cooperation between China and Cuba on surveillance capabilities have sparked inquiries about how long such activities have been going on.

“The sensitive nature of this information is such that we just simply couldn’t go into more detail, even before the [Wall Street Journal] story appeared to try to better inform that reporting,” Kirby said.

“After the first stories appeared, we worked very, very hard and as expeditiously as we could with the intelligence community to try to get some context downgraded so that we could provide it over the weekend.”

News of the alleged base in Cuba also comes amid reports that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to visit Beijing next week, resetting a visit that was postponed after a Chinese balloon that Washington says was meant for surveillance flew across the US in February.

Blinken to visit China, carry out trip postponed after spy balloon incident

US officials have said that Beijing refused to take calls from the Pentagon about the balloon before Biden ordered it shot down and has been unwilling to engage in high-level military-to-military talks since.

Blinken said on Monday that former president Donald Trump’s administration knew in 2019 of efforts by the Chinese government to upgrade intelligence collection facilities in Cuba and that actions by the Biden administration have slowed them.

“Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed down this effort by the PRC,” Blinken said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “We’ve been executing on that approach quietly, carefully – but, in our judgment, with results – ever since.”

On Thursday, Kirby denied that US intelligence about China’s alleged cooperation with Cuba on surveillance would derail Blinken’s plan to visit Beijing.

“Nothing’s changed about the fact that we understand that the bilateral relationship with China is tense right now, and nothing’s changed about the fact that [Biden] wants to keep the lines of communication open with the PRC,” Kirby said.

“Some of the important lines of communication, military-to-military, are not open and we want to get them back open,” he added. “As for whether this recent reporting out of Cuba is going to affect Secretary Blinken in his travel plans, I would not expect so.”