The Chinese Communist Party is expanding its surveillance capabilities in Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. Satellite images reveal how a Chinese spy base located in Bejucal has expanded as well as construction on a new spy base just 70 miles from the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo.
Images captured from space show the growth of Cuba’s electronic eavesdropping stations that are believed to be linked to China, including new construction at a previously unreported site about 70 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, according to a new report.
The study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, follows reporting last year by The Wall Street Journal that China and Cuba were negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, including establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.
At the time, the Journal reported that Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t disclose their locations. It couldn’t be determined which, if any, of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report.
The concern about the stations, former officials and analysts say, is that China is using Cuba’s geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to scoop up sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities, and military and commercial shipping.
Chinese facilities on the island “could also bolster China’s use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens,” said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University.
The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Authors of the CSIS report, after analyzing years’ worth of satellite imagery, found that Cuba has significantly upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and pinpointed four sites—at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay and Calabazar.
While some of the sites described by CSIS, such as the one at Bejucal, have previously been identified as listening posts, the satellite imagery provides new details about their capabilities, growth over the years and likely links with China.
“These are active locations with an evolving mission set,” said Matthew Funaiole, a senior follow at CSIS and the report’s chief author.
The report says that two of the sites near Havana—Bejucal and Calabazar—contain large dish antennas that appear designed to monitor and communicate with satellites. The report notes that while Cuba doesn’t have any satellites, the antennas would be useful for China, which does have a substantial space program.
The newest dish antenna was installed at Bejucal in January, said the report, which found that and other infrastructure upgrades at the sites over the last decade.
The most recent of the four sites, still being built and not previously known publicly, is at El Salao, outside the city of Santiago de Cuba in the eastern part of the country and not far from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.
The communist Castro dictatorship continues to open Cuba to U.S. enemies as a base of operations and espionage. It has nothing to do with sanctions and everything to do with the fact the Cuban regime has been and remains a sworn enemy of the U.S.
However, despite the Castro dictatorship’s hatred of America, there are those who continue to advocate for the lifting of sanctions against the criminal regime. Those concessions would do nothing to improve our relationship with Havana, but only make it easier for them to undermine and attack the U.S.
This is who the Castro dictatorship is. This is who they have always been. This is what they will always be. An enemy of freedom, human rights, and America.