Alwaght- China and Cuba are negotiating a deal to set up a military base in Cuba that would serve as a training facility in the country, Wall Street Journal reported, citing American official speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Talks about the base on Cuba’s northern coast are “at an advanced stage but not concluded,” the WSJ claimed, based on what the officials described as “convincing but fragmentary” and highly classified US intelligence reports.
The report followed a recent visit to Beijing of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Monday.
The American outlet also had claimed that China has already established a spy base in Cuba, part of a region called so-called US backyard.
Cuba, however, dismissed the American claims as “totally malicious and unfounded”, adding that the US was “expert in chasing the shadows.”
The White House declined to comment on the new WSJ story. According to the unnamed officials, President Joe Biden’s administration has reached out to Cuba to block the deal, citing “what it thinks might be Cuban concerns about ceding sovereignty.”
China and the US have been in a confrontation over the past few years and American officials speculate that Beijing’s move might be a counter to Washington dispatching over 100 troops to Taiwan, an island China says is part of its territory and the US should stop arming it and treating it as an independent state.
