Communist Chinese Spy Base on Cuba Will Prove a Likely Sticking Point as Blinken Heads to Beijing for Parley

Assuming Secretary of State Blinken goes to Beijing this weekend as planned, he will have much more to talk about with his Communist Chinese hosts than originally anticipated.The news that China is setting up a facility in Cuba for spying on America may not be at the top of his agenda but will be hard to overlook as the secretary appeals to Chinese leaders to back down from confrontation.In keeping with President Biden’s perception of “a thaw” in frosty Chinese relations, that’s the message the secretary wants to convey after canceling a trip to Beijing in February when China sent a spy balloon over North America.As previously planned, ideally Mr. Blinken would still like to see President Xi, who’s warned of “dangerous storms” looming in the region, but exposure of Chinese spying from Cuba will make that less likely.The White House has acknowledged knowing about the Chinese espionage facility well before two top American officials flew to Beijing for meetings that a State Department spokesman said were “candid and productive.”That phrase indicated the Americans and Chinese talked about talks between Mr. Blinken and his counterpart, Wang Yi, director of the foreign affairs commission of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of the party’s politburo. A former foreign minister, Mr. Wang in his present post ranks in the hierarchy above the foreign minister, Qin Gang, whom Mr. Blinken would also be expected to see.Now it’s far from certain Mr. Blinken will get to see Mr. Xi, who may not want to listen to his complaints about spying and would certainly not go beyond denials issued by lower ranking officials. At best, the two sides would stick to generalities all too likely to blow away in gusts of hot air.Public disclosure of Chinese activities in Cuba substantially reduces prospects for reaching at least an appearance of mutual understanding on some of the issues besetting relations between Beijing and Washington.“Biden admin’s hype over ‘Cuba spy base’ could become another ‘balloon incident’ to trouble US plan to reengage with China,” reads a headline in the Global Times, published by the party newspaper People’s Daily and reflecting the Communist regime’s views. “Chinese experts,” said the article, warned of “another ‘spy balloon incident” that might “once again drag on Washington’s plan to reengage with China.”The ruckus over Chinese espionage overshadowed what might otherwise be the leading cause for concern, Chinese intimidation of the independent island democracy of Taiwan, which Mr. Xi has vowed to recover for Beijing in the face of Mr. Biden’s repeated “commitment” to its defense.Among other topics Mr. Blinken undoubtedly would like to discuss would be confrontations between American and Chinese ships and planes on and above disputed waters, including the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea, both of which China claims as its own. The Chinese have accused American ships and planes of deliberately provoking close calls.A diplomat who now serves as coordinator for the Indo-Pacific for the White House, Kurt Campbell, has suggested that improving “lines of communication” could head off incidents such as those in which a Chinese destroyer came within 150 yards of an American destroyer in the Taiwan Straits.Such basic diplomatic double talk could help reduce tensions that might, in a worst-case scenario, flare into open hostilities.There are, of course, still more issues, including violations of copyright and patent restrictions and unfair trade practices, a laundry list that would be too long and complex to cover entirely in Mr. Blinken’s visit.In a back-handed way, the Global Times suggested a certain contrition over the spy balloon, saying “the US side overreacted to the ‘unmanned airship incident’” and was to blame for having “ruined a rare opportunity for high-level interaction and communication between China and the US.”That one was easy. All the Chinese had to do was stop launching spy balloons. China could prove more reluctant to stop spying on America from Cuba – a point of contention that will make a real “thaw” in relations with China all the more difficult.

Communist Chinese Spy Base on Cuba Will Prove a Likely Sticking Point as Blinken Heads to Beijing for Parley

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