Is the Biden administration turning a blind eye to Chinese provocations?

The Biden administration is trying to ensure a high-stakes visit to China by top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken goes ahead as planned, but critics contend that the White House has repeatedly downplayed increasingly provocative actions by China in the process.

The examples extend from revelations this week about a possible Chinese plan to build an electronic listening post in Cuba to a series of tense military encounters in the Pacific between the two nations.

Blinken’s planned visit to China next week would be the first by a U.S. secretary of state since 2018, and comes after the Biden administration postponed an earlier scheduled trip in February after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon after it entered U.S. airspace, prompting an angry reaction from Beijing.

Now, the White House doesn’t want another incident like the balloon episode to derail the planned talks, Western officials, congressional aides and experts told NBC News.

“They are working hard to make sure this visit happens,” said one Western diplomat, who was not authorized to speak on the record. “And they don’t want to be drawn into difficult subjects.”

This time it’s not a giant balloon traversing the continental U.S. that has presented the White House with a challenge, but a possible project to build a Chinese eavesdropping site in Cuba about 100 miles off Florida’s coast.

China has held discussions with Havana about setting up an electronic surveillance facility in Cuba, a U.S. official and a congressional aide with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. It was unclear whether China and Cuba had a formal agreement in place for the base.

The Wall Street Journal first reported plans for the site, saying the two countries had forged an agreement in principle to proceed. Other U.S. media outlets have also reported on China’s possible foray into the Western hemisphere, a potentially audacious move that could allow Beijing to scoop up electronic signals in the southeastern U.S.

But White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the Wall Street Journal report was “inaccurate.” Kirby and other officials did not specify what exactly was incorrect about the account, saying it was not possible to discuss sensitive intelligence reporting.

“We have had real concerns about China’s relationship with Cuba, and we have been concerned since day one of the administration about China’s activities in our hemisphere and around the world,” Kirby told NBC News in a statement. “We are closely monitoring it and taking steps to counter it.”

Congressional aides say the administration appears to be trying to avoid confirming the reports on the possible Cuba post, with Blinken’s trip in the balance and details of Beijing’s plans in Cuba still uncertain.

China’s embassy in Washington said it was “unaware” of any such project in Cuba. A spokesperson for the foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, said that “spreading rumors and slander is a common tactic of the United States,” and accused Washington of hypocrisy given its global surveillance operations.

“The United States is also the most powerful hacker empire in the world, and also veritably a major monitoring nation,” Wang said.

Cuba dismissed the report of a planned Chinese listening post as “mendacious and baseless” and said that Havana has been committed since 2014 to opposing any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties expressed alarm over China’s possible post in Cuba and called on the Biden administration to take action to prevent it.

“We are deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people,” said the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, and the Republican vice chair, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, in a joint statement.

“We must be clear that it would be unacceptable for China to establish an intelligence facility within 100 miles of Florida and the United States, in an area also populated with key military installations and extensive maritime traffic,” Warner and Rubio said.

The chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, said on Twitter that he was “deeply troubled” by the reports and added, “If true, this would be yet another act of Chinese aggression.” 

Setting up a listening post in Cuba fits into China’s broader global strategy to secure ports and hubs at key naval chokepoints around the world, providing it with a platform “to conduct real-time intelligence collection against the U.S. military and U