China is Denies new report linking it to four bases in Cuba that a think tank says allow the Chinese Communist Party to spy on the United States.
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies issued a report last week containing details about the facilities In Cuba Which it claims China may use to collect intelligence (SIGINT) information about the United States
“Cooperation between China and Cuba is open, does not target any third party, and does not allow any malicious slander from a third party,” Chinese Foreign Minister Mao Ning told reporters on Wednesday.
Cuban Foreign Minister Carlos de Cosio claimed that reports of Chinese spy centers in Cuba came from “Cuba's enemies” in the United States “as a way to justify the criminal policy of economic aggression. This is completely false.”
CSIS analyzed more than a dozen “sites of interest” in Cuba, and four of them stood out as likely to support China and its espionage ambitions.
“These sites have undergone notable upgrades in recent years, even as Cuba faces increasingly poor economic prospects, bringing it closer to China.” Report said the authors.
Each of the four sites had “observable SIGINT devices,” visible physical security infrastructure and other signs of intelligence gathering.
One of these stations is located on a hill overlooking Havana, Pijocal, and has been suspected of having ties to Chinese intelligence for years. The complex gained notoriety for housing Soviet missiles during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
During the 2016 presidential debates, Sen. Marco RubioThe Florida Republican called on Cuba to “(expel) this Chinese listening station in Pijocal.”
According to CSIS's findings, satellite images show that the site was active as of March 2024 and had been so for some time. There are at least five entrances to underground facilities at the base, but what the facilities contain cannot be discerned from satellite images. Antennas are scattered on the ground, including satellite antennas used to intercept satellite communications.
Havana is located only 100 miles from the coast FloridaThe site will likely be used to collect data on US rocket launches from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(CSIS/Hidden Reach/Maxar 2024)
The United States and China are locked in a space race, and rocket launches that carry American satellites into space are likely to receive a high level of interest within the Chinese Communist Party.
At another location on the other side of the island, east of the city of Santiago de Cuba, a major radio signal finding technology project is being built, capable of detecting signals at a distance of between 3,000 and 8,000 nautical miles.
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Cuba has a history of allowing US adversaries to use its territory to spy on US communications. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated a SIGINT facility at the Lourdes Signals Intelligence Complex near Havana. This site monitored American satellites and intercepted sensitive military and commercial communications.
In recent decades, the alliance between China and Cuba has grown – and China has provided some $7.8 billion in development financing to the island nation.
