Satellite images suggest that the growth of Cuba's electronic spy stations may be linked to China, including new construction at a previously unknown site located 70 miles from the United States' naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
The study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, follows reporting from 2023 that said China and Cuba were negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, along with establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.
According to U.S. officials who didn't disclose their locations, Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island. It is also unknown which of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report.
Former officials and analysts are worried about the stations because China could be using Cuba's geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to spy on sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities and military and commercial shipping sites.
Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University, warned that the Chinese facilities on the island could also strengthen China's "use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens."
The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declined to comment on the matter.
After reviewing a year's worth of satellite imagery, the authors of the CSIS report revealed that Cuba has noticeably upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and targeted four sites at Bejucal, Calabazar, El Salao and Wajay. (Related: NATO secretary general suggests putting more NUCLEAR WEAPONS on standby.)
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Some of the sites described by CSIS, such as the one at Bejucal, have already been identified as listening posts. However, satellite imagery offers new information about their capabilities, growth over the years and possible links with China.
Chinese spy facilities have "evolving mission set"
Matthew Funaiole, a senior fellow at CSIS and the report's chief author, explained that these are active locations "with an evolving mission set."
The report suggested that two of the sites near Havana, Bejucal and Calabazar, have large dish antennas that seem to be designed to monitor and communicate with satellites. The report added that while Cuba lacks satellites, the antennas would be useful for China, which has a substantial space program.
According to the report, the newest dish antenna was installed at Bejucal in January. Additionally, the antenna and other infrastructure upgrades were discovered at the sites within the last decade.
The most recent of the four sites, which is still under construction and was not previously known publicly, is at El Salao, located outside the city of Santiago de Cuba in the eastern part of the country and is near Guantanamo.
Construction at El Salao started in 2021, and the site seems to be designed to hold a large formation of antennas known as a circularly disposed antenna array. These antennas can be used to find and intercept electronic signals, according to the report.
Funaiole said that, when complete, the site could potentially monitor communications and other electronic signals coming from the Guantanamo base. Both the U.S. and Russia have stopped using this sort of antenna array and replaced it with newer technologies, but China has been building them at some militarized outposts in the South China Sea.
China has played a more significant role on the island in recent years. According to a 2023 White House statement, China conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials claim that the U.S. has a global network of military bases and listening posts.
In a statement, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China's embassy in Washington, wrote that America is "the leading power in terms of eavesdropping" and that it does not spare its allies. Pengyu also claimed that the U.S. constantly exaggerates China's "establishment of spy bases or conducting surveillance activities in Cuba."
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