By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has made its&nbsp;concerns&nbsp;known to the&nbsp;Cuban government&nbsp;about&nbsp;Cuba&nbsp;hosting&nbsp;Chinese&nbsp;spy&nbsp;operations on its territory,&nbsp;White&nbsp;House&nbsp;spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
Kirby said the bilateral relationship with&nbsp;China&nbsp;was tense at the moment, but President Joe Biden was committed to keeping the lines of communication open.
He told a&nbsp;White&nbsp;House&nbsp;briefing that he would not expect recent reports&nbsp;about&nbsp;a Chinese&nbsp;spy&nbsp;base&nbsp;in&nbsp;Cuba&nbsp;to affect a planned visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to&nbsp;China&nbsp;later this week.
"We understand the bilateral relationship with&nbsp;China&nbsp;is tense right now, and nothing's changed&nbsp;about&nbsp;the fact that the president wants to keep the lines of communication open with the PRC," Kirby told reporters,&nbsp;using the initials for the People's Republic of&nbsp;China.
The Wall Street Journal last week quoted U.S. officials as saying a new Chinese&nbsp;spying effort was underway on&nbsp;Cuba.&nbsp;China&nbsp;on Monday denied it was&nbsp;using&nbsp;Cuba&nbsp;as a&nbsp;spying&nbsp;base.
Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez on Monday again rejected the allegations as false, dismissing them as a U.S. fabrication meant to justify Washington's decades-old economic embargo against the island.
Blinken told reporters on Monday that&nbsp;China's efforts in&nbsp;Cuba&nbsp;were part of a global push by Beijing to expand its presence overseas, but U.S. actions since Biden came to power in January 2021 had "slowed down this effort."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana, editing by Jonathan Oatis and Gerry Doyle)

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