After denying reports that China planned to pay Cuba billions to reactivate a former Soviet electronic espionage facility in Lourdes, Cuba, the Biden administration on June 11 quietly admitted not only to Chinese spying on the U.S. from this facility but that it has been operational for over three years.
An unnamed Biden official tried to blame the spy post on the Trump administration by claiming China has multiple intelligence collection facilities in Cuba and upgraded them in 2019.
The official said the Biden administration has known about these facilities since January 2021 and used diplomacy to slow down and disrupt China’s operations at them.
Given President Biden’s weak China policy and the extremely poor state of U.S.-China relations during his presidency, it's impossible to believe that Biden officials succeeded in slowing down any Chinese spying on the U.S.
Moreover, both former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have disputed that China was operating electronic spy facilities in Cuba during the Trump presidency.
It's likely, given the downturn in U.S.-China relations, secret Chinese "police stations" in major U.S. cities, and the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the U.S. in February, that China actually expanded its electronic spying from Cuba since Biden became president.
So why did Biden officials initially deny the reports of the Chinese spy posts in Cuba?
The most generous answer is that Biden is desperate to salvage relations with China and did not want this issue to interfere with this effort like the spy balloon did last February.
That incident caused U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a visit to China, angering Chinese officials.
By coincidence, Blinken’s long-delayed trip to Beijing is scheduled for this week, the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State to China since 2018.
However, the Biden administration’s attempt to discredit this story is consistent with its habit of playing down and denying all threats from China and referring to China as a U.S. competitor instead of an adversary.
Some have attributed this habit to the incompetence and naivete of President Biden’s national security policies.
However, recent discoveries by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability of millions in foreign payments, including from Chinese Communist Party-linked entities, to the Biden family lend credence to a far more serious criticism: that President Biden has been compromised by China.
One has to ask what China was buying by paying enormous sums to Hunter Biden and members of the Biden family. Are these payments why Joe Biden has been so soft on China?
Whatever the reason for the Biden administration’s dubious answers to questions about Chinese spy post in Cuba, these responses also downplayed the growing threat of electronic surveillance and cyber warfare against the United States by America’s adversaries.
Instead of trying to deny this story or blame it on the Trump administration, Biden officials should have used it as an opportunity to warn the American public and U.S. businesses about these threats and urge them to take steps to protect their electronic security.
Because the Biden administration is sure to continue to dissemble on the Cuba spy posts, it is up to Congress to get to the bottom of them and take action.
Congress should hold hearings on reports of Chinese spy posts in Cuba to establish what the Biden administration knew about these posts, the extent of this threat to U.S. communications, and whether other U.S. adversaries have paid Cuba to show electronic spy posts.
If China does have active spy posts in Cuba, Congress should pass bipartisan legislation imposing sanctions and telling Beijing that U.S. relations will not improve as long as it engages in these kinds of unfriendly acts (and others like them).
That is, actions that greatly threaten U.S. security.
Congress should pass legislation to send the same message to Cuba and emphasize that the U.S. trade embargo will never be lifted as long as Cuba collaborates with America’s adversaries.
Fred Fleitz is a Newsmax TV Contributor and vice-chair of the America First Policy Institute Center for American Security. He previously served as National Security Council Chief of staff, CIA analyst, and as a member of the House Intelligence Committee staff. Read more reports from Fred Fleitz — Click Here Now.
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