I'm John Batchelor. I welcome Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-host,

for our conversation with our longtime good colleague of the Heritage Foundation, Steve Yates,

to comment on what we know and what we need to know about the People's Republic of China's sinister intentions,

planting their flag and their presence, civilian military presence, in Cuba,

in Caracas, Venezuela, and Managua, Nicaragua, and more, but that's enough.

We'll start with Cuba, though, because that is an economy that is in collapse.

The President of the United States has made remarks

suggesting if this new interim regime,

whatever it is in Caracas,

doesn't cut the oil off to Cuba, there will be consequences.

I'm not aware what Cuba will be like without that access

to Venezuelan oil.

Steve, a very good day to you.

What is your measure of the Chinese conduct in Cuba? What do they

want there? What do they get for their money? Good day. Well, John, in the Caribbean, broader

central and Latin America, China has sought several different things. One is a proximate base from

which to do things that are related to the United States.

In Cuba, they had engaged in putting up signals intelligence kinds of facilities to be able to assess movement of military operations or just general intelligence gathering related to the United States.

We have some significant military

capabilities that are in the state of Florida that are relevant to the hemisphere, but now

people have learned that any military facility, even if it's right in the middle of the continental

United States, can go to the other side of the world like Iran without being detected from

...