The federal government has focused on defending eastern Europe from Russia for the past year.
As the war in Ukraine rages on, China is growing increasingly hostile towards Taiwan.
And China just made a major military move that sparked fears of a new Cold War.
China invests $6 billion in Cuba for permission to build a military intelligence base
Reports coming out of The Wall Street Journal indicate that China is working on establishing a new military presence in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. officials said a new Chinese military base for eavesdropping on military communications will soon be constructed in Cuba.
The base is allegedly planned for the communist nation of Cuba, which is located only 100 miles off the coast of Florida. The base is part of a project to expand China’s reach around the world and will cost approximately $6 billion in low-interest loans that would help develop the island nation.
This is leading to fears of a modern-day Cold War, reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960’s. The project will start as a means of collecting electronic communications from the United States, but the use of the base could change over time.
One expert said this is just the latest move in a campaign by China to expand into neighboring nations.
Policy expert: China is “engaging in a Cold War 2.0”
The Chairman of the China Policy Initiative, Steve Yates, discussed China’s history in Latin America and what he believes could happen next. He said Beijing “has been very aggressive about engagement in Central America in part to try to lure away, or bribe away, the remaining allies of Taiwan.”
He said they’ve been pushing harder in “recent decades” and have been using their newfound relationships as “ways of getting around US trade restrictions.” He said that the latest development is a bit more than just economic prowess.
“It seems to be with this recent report that China is engaging in a Cold War 2.0 and going as far as the Soviets had hoped to go with Cuba trying to get close to America’s shores,” Yates explained. He said that while the US has attempted to normalize relations with Cuba, they “find common cause with China.”
Yates said that there’s an obvious reason China feels so emboldened right now.
America could be heading for something “more dangerous” than the Cuban Missile Crisis
Yates went on to say that the Biden administration is projecting American weakness around the world and that is why China is making this move. “They feel like they can act with impunity,” he said, before pointing to Biden’s response over the Chinese “spy balloon.”
Biden has made it “pretty clear if you’re sitting in Beijing that you can poke, prod, and torment your American counterpart,” he said, before adding that the only thing they will get in return is “a whimper and a wish for dialogue from the Biden White House and State Department.”
Yates warned that if China decided to move offensive weaponry to the island nation it would create “a complete echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis.” If this happens, Yates said, then America would already be beyond a Cold War “more dangerous” than it was with the Soviet Union.
Patriot Political will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
