China’s purported plan to establish a military training base in Cuba can help the American people to understand more fully Russia’s opposition to NATO expansionism in Eastern Europe and Ukraine as well as China’s opposition to U.S. military bases near China.
U.S. officials are going ballistic over the purported China-Cuba deal, not because the deal is illegal but because they simply do not feel comfortable with a Chinese military base so close to the United States.
It is undisputed that China has just as much legal authority to establish a military base in Cuba as the United States does with countries that host the 800-1000 U.S. military bases in foreign countries.
Nonetheless, U.S. officials don’t like it one bit. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the United States “would have deep concerns” about the China-Cuba plan.
Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz goes further. He’s advocating a full-scale military response to the plan. Gaetz dramatically announced, “We should be a lot more concerned that China is functionally turning Cuba into a stationary aircraft carrier right off the coast of Florida.”
Democrat Sen. Mark Warner and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the chair and vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a joint statement saying that they were “deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people.”
Meanwhile, while going into emotional overdrive over the purported China-Cuba plan, U.S. officials continue to wear their blinders that prevent them from seeing that the Russians and the Chinese feel the same way about U.S. military bases and military expansionism in their part of the world, especially since there is no denying that the U.S. government, as Martin Luther King observed, is the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”