China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement to create a Chinese spy base on the island that would allow communications to be captured throughout the southeastern United States, according to U.S. officials with access to highly classified intelligence to The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the news website Politico. Noticias Telemundo could not independently verify this information.
These anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal, which advanced the information, that China reached an agreement in principle with Cuba to pay several billion dollars to allow it to build the station. These plans have alarmed the government of Joe Biden, these sources explained, because of the geographical proximity of the island and because China is an economic and military rival.
With a spy base in Cuba, located 100 miles from Florida, Chinese intelligence services could intercept a wide range of communications, including emails, phone calls and satellite transmissions, from a region with multiple military bases, as well as monitor ship traffic.
"While I can't speak to this specific report, we are well aware of the People's Republic of China's efforts to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in this hemisphere, and we have spoken many times about them," John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, told the newspaper when asked about the deal.
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The National Security Council's coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, said in an interview on MSNBC that the report is "not accurate," without clarifying what it meant.
A White House source, who requested anonymity, insisted to Noticias Telemundo that the report is not "accurate," although without denying its veracity. "We have real concerns about China's relationship with Cuba," he added, "and we have been concerned since Day 1 of the Administration about Chinese activities in our hemisphere and around the world." "We are monitoring it closely and will take measures to counter it," he added.
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The information on the base would have been collected last week, the sources cited by the newspaper said. China could collect data with the signals intelligence system, known as SIGINT, which allows interception of different electronic means of communication. The officials declined to elaborate on the proposed location or whether construction had begun.
The source familiar with this intelligence told CNN that while a spy base in Cuba would be worrisome, China has already established footholds within the US, namely secret police stations, against which the Joe Biden Administration is cracking down.
The news comes as the United States tries to improve diplomatic relations with China after months of tensions over the Chinese spy balloon intercepted in U.S. airspace in February. The Chinese regime has repeatedly claimed that it was an unmanned civilian aircraft that accidentally veered off course and that the US overreacted by shooting it down. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to travel to Beijing later this month and possibly meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. President Joe Biden said in May that he believed that would improve relations.
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Microsoft denounced two weeks ago computer attacks by hackers supported by China to key infrastructures of the country. Days later, the Defense Department said it detected an "aggressive" maneuver by a Chinese fighter that flew dangerously close to a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft.
Last week, the foreign ministers of Cuba and China met in Beijing.Florence Lo/AP
The revelation of the spy base also renewed the Republican Party's criticism of Biden's handling of foreign policy in Asia and national defense. "Biden needs to wake up and realize that we have real Chinese threats on our doorstep," Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the UN, and now a candidate to represent the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential election, said on Twitter.
A spy base in Cuba would make clear that "China is prepared to do the same thing in America's backyard," Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a national security think tank in Washington, told The Wall Street Journal.
"Installing this base signals a new phase of escalation in China's broader defense strategy. It's a bit of a game changer," Singleton said. "Choosing Cuba to do so is also intentionally provocative," he added.
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The United States maintains a military base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay, where a prison was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to house suspected terrorists captured abroad. The United States has in the past used the base as a signals intelligence station.
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The United States has also intervened before to prevent foreign powers from extending their influence in the Western Hemisphere, particularly during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of nuclear war after the Soviets deployed nuclear-capable missiles on the island.
The Soviets backed down and withdrew the missiles. A few months later, the US quietly withdrew Turkey's intermediate-range ballistic missiles that the Soviets complained about.
