China is building an electronic spy facility on Cuba

Beijing is building an electronic spy facility on Cuba

HAVANA, June 8th  Beijing is set to build an electronic eavesdropping facility on Cuba, just 100 miles from the coast of Florida, that will be able to gather US military secrets. Citing officials ‘with highly classified intelligence’, The Wall Street Journal said China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement to establish the base.

The newspaper reported its sources as saying Beijing had agreed to pay cash-strapped Havana several billions of dollars to allow it to build the facility, and that at this stage an agreement had been reached ‘in principle’.

Such a facility would allow China to monitor the south of the US, home to many military bases, as well as ship traffic in the region.

This presents a new geopolitical challenge for Washington to deal with, as it grapples with China’s growing global influence.

Beijing is considered by Washington to be its most significant rival when it comes to both its military and its economy, and a Chinese base with military and spying capabilities so close to the United States would pose an unprecedented threat.

John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that while he could not speak about the specific report, he pointed to the many times US officials have covered China’s ‘efforts to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in this hemisphere,’ the WSJ reported.

‘We monitor it closely, take steps to counter it, and remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home, in the region, and around the world.’

The intelligence – described as ‘convincing’ by anonymous US officials cited in the report – has caused alarm within the Biden administration because of Cuba’s proximity to the US mainland, the WSJ said.

Beijing is considered by Washington to be its most significant rival when it comes to both its military and its economy, and a Chinese base with military and spying capabilities so close to the United States would pose an unprecedented threat.

Such a facility would enable Beijing to monitor a range of communications, including emails, phone calls and satellite transmissions, the WSJ said.

The newspaper said officials did not go as far as providing the exact location of the base, or whether construction had begun. It was also not clear if Washington could do anything to stop the base from being completed.

From tens of billions of dollars in funding for key infrastructure projects across the region to its own secretive, military-run space station in Argentina that could target American satellites, China’s presence has grown.

Some 21 countries in Latin America are signed up to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – a defining policy introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013 that wins power and influence by funding global infrastructure projects.

Chinese state banks have loaned $136 billion to Latin American countries since 2005 with terms US officials have dubbed a ‘spiraling trap’. The cash has funded everything from major energy projects to roads, sports stadiums and covid vaccines.

Meanwhile, private Chinese firms control major ports on the Panama Canal which US officials say ‘could be turned quickly toward military capabilities’.

China also supplies the majority of Mexico’s telecom equipment and mine vast amounts of crucial minerals on the continent.

But an intelligence gathering facility in Cuba would present the most obvious threat to US security interests.

The United States has taken steps before to stop foreign superpowers from expanding into the Western Hemisphere, including Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was a 13-day confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union when Washington deployed missiles in Italy and Turkey, which were matched by Moscow stationing ballistic missiles in Cuba.

China is building an electronic eavesdropping facility on Cuba

From tens of billions of dollars in funding for key infrastructure projects across the region to its own secretive, military-run space station in Argentina that could target American satellites, China’s presence in Latin America and the Caribbean has grown huge

The US Navy quarantined the island, while America and the USSR were brought to the brink of a nuclear war – the closest the world has ever come to such a disaster.

Eventually, the Soviets backed down and removed the missiles from the island, while the US quietly did the same from Italy and Turkey a few months later.

A year earlier, the US had also backed a failed military landing operation on Cuba, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, by Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution. The invading forces were defeated within three days.

It also solidified Castro’s rule and pushed Cuba closer toward the USSR – ultimately leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.