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China has had spy base in Cuba for years, U.S. official says

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, U.S. national security adviser, attend a high-level strategic dialogue on March 18, 2021, in Anchorage, Alaska. (Liu Jie)
By Karoun Demirjian New York Times

A Chinese spy base in Cuba that could intercept electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial buildings has been up and running since or before 2019, when the Chinese base was upgraded, according to a Biden administration official.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said the spy base was an issue that the Biden administration had inherited from former President Donald Trump. After President Joe Biden took office, his administration was briefed about the base in Cuba as well as plans China was considering to build similar facilities across the globe, the official said.

The Biden administration has been working to counter China’s efforts to gain a foothold in the region and elsewhere, the official said, chiefly by engaging diplomatically with nations that China was pursuing as potential hosts for such bases. The official added that the administration had slowed China’s plans but declined to give specifics.

The existence of an agreement to build a Chinese spy facility in Cuba, first reported by the Wall Street Journal and also reported by the New York Times and other news outlets, prompted a forceful response from Capitol Hill. In a joint statement on Thursday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, said they were “deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people.”

It is not clear if Beijing and Havana have plans to further enhance China’s intelligence gathering capabilities on the island nation.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby denied the reports earlier in the week, saying they were “not accurate.” He added that “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.”

Some Biden administration critics questioned the motives for the administration’s response.

“Why did the Biden administration previously deny these reports of a CCP spy base in Cuba? Why did they downplay the ‘silly’ CCP spy balloon?” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chair of the House select committee looking into strategic competition with China, said in a statement Saturday, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its initials.

While Beijing’s global efforts to build military bases and listening outposts have been documented previously, the reports detailed the extent to which China is bringing its intelligence-gathering operations into ever-closer proximity with the United States. Cuba’s coastline is less than 100 miles from the nearest part of Florida, a close enough distance to enhance China’s technological ability to conduct signals intelligence, by monitoring electronic communications across the U.S. Southeast, which is home to several military bases.

The reports also surfaced at an awkward moment for the Biden administration, which has been trying to normalize relations with China after a protracted period of heightened tensions.

Last year, several diplomatic, military and climate engagements between the two countries were frozen after Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan over objections from Beijing, which considers the self-governing island part of its territory.

High-level meetings, including an official trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were canceled again this year, after a Chinese spy balloon was seen crossing the United States by people on the ground, and tracked hovering near sensitive military sites.

Blinken is expected to make that official visit to Beijing soon, and it is unclear if revelations of a Chinese spy facility so close to U.S. territory could complicate those plans. Other issues hover over the trip, including growing calls for China to release Yuyu Dong, a prominent journalist who has been detained since February 2022 and is awaiting trial on charges of espionage that his family members say are false. Dong, a former Nieman fellow at Harvard, met for years in a transparent manner with U.S. and Japanese diplomats and journalists in Beijing.