Chinese nationals, sometimes posing as tourists, have accessed military bases and sensitive sites in the US as many as 100 times in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing US officials who described the incidents as potential espionage threats.

The defence department, FBI and other agencies held a review last year to try to limit these incidents that involved gatecrashers because of their attempts to get into US military bases without proper authorisation, the WSJ report said.

The gatecrashers ranged from Chinese nationals found crossing into a US missile range in New Mexico to scuba divers swimming in murky waters near a US government rocket launch site in Florida, according to the report.

The incidents that occurred in rural areas where there is little tourism typically involved Chinese nationals who were pressed into service and required to report back to the Chinese government, the report added, citing officials familiar with the practice.

The US department of defence and the department of homeland security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the WSJ report. The reported incidents come at a time when Washington and Beijing are taking tentative steps to soothe tensions that spiked after a suspected Chinese high-altitude spy balloon crossed the US before the US military shot it down off the East Coast in February.

Republican nominee

With her campaign gaining momentum after last month’s Republican primary debate, Indian-American presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said former US president Donald Trump would not be the party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential elections.

The latest opinion poll released by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Haley, 51, was in the third spot in terms of popularity rating after Trump and Ron DeSantis. Her fellow Indian-American candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was in the fourth spot.

“I don’t think President Trump’s going to be the nominee. I think it’s going to be me. But I will tell you that any Republican is better than what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing,” Haley told CBS News in an interview on Sunday. According to RealClearPolitics, Trump tops the list of average of all such polls with 53.6 per cent followed by DeSantis (13 per cent), Ramaswamy (7.1 per cent) and Haley (6 per cent).