U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration didn’t do enough to counter Chinese efforts to boost intelligence-gathering overseas after discovering that Beiijng had been operating a spy facility in Cuba since 2019.
Blinken said the incoming Biden administration was briefed in 2021 about Chinese efforts to "project and sustain military power at a greater distance,” and the U.S. engaged with other governments to blunt China’s intelligence-gathering push. Although the top U.S. diplomat didn’t comment directly on the U.S. response to the Cuba facility, he said efforts in recent years had slowed China’s ambitions.
"It was our assessment that despite awareness of the basing efforts and some attempts to address the challenge in the past administration, we weren’t making enough progress on this issue and we needed a more direct approach,” Blinken told reporters Monday at a briefing alongside Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.