China has been spying from Cuba for some time and upgraded its intelligence collection facilities there in 2019, a Washington official said on Saturday, following a report about a new spying effort under way on the island.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island about 160km from Florida.
The Journal said that China planned to pay Cuba billions of dollars as part of the negotiations.
Photo: Reuters
“I’ve seen that press report, it’s not accurate,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in an MSNBC interview on Thursday. “What I can tell you is that we have been concerned since day one of this administration about China’s influence activities around the world; certainly in this hemisphere and in this region, we’re watching this very, very closely.”
The Washington official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the media’s characterization “does not comport with our understanding,” but did not specify how the report was wrong nor address in detail whether there were efforts by China to build a new eavesdropping facility in Cuba.
The official said the issue predated US President Joe Biden’s term, as had Beijing’s efforts to bolster its intelligence collection infrastructure worldwide.
“This is an ongoing issue, and not a new development,” the official said. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019. This is well-documented in the intelligence record.”
Asked for comment, an official at China’s embassy in Washington pointed to Friday’s statement by a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson who accused the US of “spreading rumors and slander” with talk of a Cuba spy station, and of being “the most powerful hacker empire in the world.”
The Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Thursday, Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cossio dismissed the Journal’s report as “totally mendacious” and called it a US fabrication meant to justify Washington’s decades-old economic embargo against the nation.
He said Cuba rejects all foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Washington official said that despite the administration of former US president Donald Trump being aware of the Chinese basing effort in Cuba and making some attempts to address the challenge, “we were not making enough progress and needed a more direct approach.”
Biden’s national security team was briefed by the intelligence community soon after he took office in January 2021 about a number of sensitive Chinese efforts around the globe where Beijing was weighing expanding logistics, basing and collection infrastructure as part of the People’s Liberation Army’s attempt to further its influence, the official said.
The official said US diplomats had engaged governments that were considering hosting Chinese bases and had exchanged information with them.
“Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed the PRC down,” the official said. “We think the PRC isn’t quite where they had hoped to be.”
Additional reporting AP
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