White House and Pentagon admit false report on alleged Chinese base in Cuba

Both the Pentagon and the White House denied unfounded reports that China plans to build a listening post in Cuba to spy on electronic communications in the southeastern United States.

National Security Council spokesman here, John Kirby, cast doubt on the report released the day before by The Wall Street Journal and considered that it did not conform to reality.

"I've seen that press report. It is not accurate," the official told the Msnbc television network.

Also Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder disqualified the information.

"We are not aware of China and Cuba developing any kind of spy station," he said.

The initial text, recognized today as fake news by the U.S. government itself, stated that China and Cuba had reached a secret agreement that would allow Beijing to establish an electronic spying facility on the island.

According to the report, this would allow the Asian giant to monitor communications in the southeastern United States.

Following the allegations made by The Wall Street Journal, Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernández de Cossío called them false and assured that they are totally unfounded slander.

He described the information as "totally mendacious", and stressed that it was a fallacy promoted with the perfidious intention of justifying the unprecedented tightening of Washington's economic blockade against the Caribbean nation and the destabilization campaigns.

It is about deceiving the public opinion of the United States and the world, the diplomat remarked, adding that these are lies frequently fabricated by U.S. officials, "apparently familiar with intelligence information".

In this sense, he gave as an example those referring to the alleged acoustic attacks against U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana, the falsehood about a non-existent Cuban military presence in Venezuela and the lie about the imaginary existence of biological weapons laboratories.

"Regardless of Cuba's sovereign rights in defense matters, our country is a signatory of the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed in Havana in January 2014. By virtue of it, we reject any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean," he emphasized.

China also demanded today that the United States not meddle in Cuba's internal affairs and accused it of spreading slander.

Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denounced that spreading rumors and slandering have become very common practices by Washington, which uses it to meddle in other countries' issues.