Report: China Strikes Secret Deal to Build Spying Base in Cuba
The WSJ: “China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island.”
While President Joe Biden has been predicting a ‘thaw ‘ in U.S.-China relations, Beijing is rolling out plans to build a massive spy base in Cuba, U.S. officials say.
The facility, capable of carrying out electronic surveillance on American defense and industrial sectors, will give China a listening post just 100 miles from the U.S. coast. “China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, in a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the U.S., according to U.S. officials familiar with highly classified intelligence,” The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
China offered to reward their fellow communist regime handsomely for conducting a high-tech spying operation on Cuban soil. Beijing reportedly offered Cubans cash to the tune of “several billion” to set up the spying facility aimed at the U.S., the WSJ reportedly disclosed.
This month alone, China has harassed & threatened a U.S. fighter jet & naval ship. Now, it’s putting a spy base in Cuba. President Biden is twiddling his thumbs, worrying about China’s green energy policies. Joe Biden needs to wake up to the real Chinese threats on our doorstep.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) June 8, 2023
Politico reported:
China is in talks with Cuba to establish a foothold there to spy on the United States, two senior U.S. officials said, a provocative move that already has lawmakers warning about parallels to the Cold War.
The officials, granted anonymity to discuss an extremely sensitive intelligence matter, said that China was in direct conversations with Cuba to set up a base on the island nation just 100 miles from the United States. It would allow Beijing to collect signals intelligence on southeastern portions of America, home to many military facilities and major industries. Evidence of the negotiations came to light in recent weeks, the officials said.
Such a pact between China and Cuba could threaten to derail the Biden administration’s efforts to “thaw” its frosty relations with Beijing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit China in the coming weeks, a trip that was postponed in February after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed North America. Diplomacy with China continues mainly at the economic and trade level, while military-to-military discussions are practically nonexistent.
The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report on the discussions, said Beijing and Havana reached a “secret agreement” whereby China pays Cuba billions of dollars for a facility. The two officials told POLITICO they couldn’t confirm that there was a finalized deal, only that China was in discussions with Cuba about spying on the United States.
BREAKING: China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, in a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the U.S. This is yet further indication the ChiComs have utter contempt for the Biden…
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 8, 2023
The damning revelations fly in the face of President Biden’s hoped “thaw” in U.S..-China relations. At last month’s G7 summit in Japan, he downplayed the recent Chinese spy balloon incidents and wished for a reproachment with the communist regime.
On May 23, the New York Times reported President “Biden’s prediction . . . of a coming ‘thaw’ in relations with Beijing, as both sides move beyond what he called the ‘silly’ Chinese act of sending a giant surveillance balloon over the United States.” His “optimism is based on the quiet signals he has received in behind-the-scenes meetings with the Chinese government,” the newspaper declared.
The reports of Chinese spying operations just off the U.S. coast come as Beijing is using its state-owned companies to spy on military and civilians communications networks in the West. Chinese companies control an increasingly large share of the 5G mobile and wireless networks that not only support mobile devices and self-driven cars but also industrial robotics, power plants, traffic flow, and defense infrastructure.
Update: Biden admin blames Trump
After downplaying the story for days, the Biden administration on Saturday admitted that the Chinese spying base in Cuba was already up and running, and pushed the blame on the previous administration,
“On Saturday, an administration official clarified by saying that the Chinese base in Cuba has already been established, noting that it didn’t happen on their watch,”the Politico reported late Saturday.
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And, we know that the Big Guy has been handsomely paid to offer cover to the CCP on this. We can expect the U.S. State Dept to issue an official statement along the lines of – “China base in Cuba .? What base, . . . never heard of it!!”
Let us all instead clutch pearls over the truth of 75 million itchy fingers fed up with this crowd selling us out.
I work with Chinese people every day. They are not in any way compatible with the west.
Globalism is death.
I don’t see why it matters. Any communication that you want to make secure is easy to make secure.
Really? Easy? You don’t think it will be helpful for them to scoop up vast quantities of encrypted signals, in their efforts to crack our encryption algorithms? You don’t think they can learn a lot from the ‘meta data’ related to encrypted communications? Frequencies? Directions of signals? Patterns of communication that can be discerned even if the underlying packets/signals are encrypted? If there is no value in scooping up such traffic, why do you suppose our military and security apparatus does it routinely?
Under Biden, is anything bad for America a surprise anymore? Impeach him. Show the Democrats that two can play the game. Impeach Harris, too, for dereliction of duty. There’s so much to expose. Let them play defense.
Absolutely. Using all the sophisticated technological tools that… China sells us.
Woops, that was meant to reply to rhhardin.
So cause a public backlash against the Republican Party by the American public, while Chuck Schumer just has an up or down yes/no vote where the senate votes to acquit Joe Biden……
Glad other people who are not you come up with strategy.
The people who would backlash are already backlashed, Neville.
The bulk of actual America would rally to the standard.
So concerned not to look bad. That’s known as virtue signalling.
It’s known as checks and balances. Drastic times call for drastic measure. Bribery not enough for you?
How about we defeat Biden at the ballot box, appoint a special prosecutor for the bribery, and allow state AGs to investigate him, and actually make positive changes instead of your idea of losing what little we have and empowering Joe Biden?
If you think the Democrats in the senate are impeaching him your insane.
The Senate tries, not impeaches. Perhaps the pie in the sky approach is futile. Are the Democrats using that approach? How about we defeat Trump at the ballot box? They have intefered 3 TIMES!
The point is to wield political power in a Constitutionally appropriate way. Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. And, most importantly, it will show the blatant corruption of the Democrats, who thus far act with impunity.
Not to say it would happen, but this opposition to the idea for fear of how it would look is silly based on the reality of the day.
Should have added, it’s time for the Legislature to use it’s co-equal authority. Don’t doubt for a minute that Democrats would not act, The point is to show that there are two sides and the provide notice to Democrats it will be used against them if they persist. People are more in tune than you give them credit for. And what better way for the information to actually get out. Democratic corruption is a gold mine for the ignorant. But let’s worry about feelings. Got it.
The people did not hand Biden the senate because they want impeachment.
Strange remark. It’s about the HOUSE! It’s the one that gets to impeach, and there are plenty of grounds, actually. You have no clue why people handed Biden the Senate, so why pretend? So worried about impressions of people that laugh at the “concern” or are indifferent.
We won the House based on moderates who pledged to work with the White House to find common ground, not on rhetoric about impeachment.
The Democrats won the senate.
How the people of this country vote is how you tell what they feel. The moderate Republicans Trump primaried in places like Grand Rapids got replaced not by an impeachment advocate but by Democrats.
Yes the voters get a say in what we do in a Republic.
We could either defy the voters and get voted out or get Biden voted out of office.
I prefer getting Biden voted out of office but actually trying to change the world for the better might be just me.
And a Kennedy is running for president again.
Now I really am having serious Galactica deja vu.
When you have bad relations with another country it will try it’s best to be ready.
Do you think we are not launching our own high tech spy missions against Iran with facilities in the area?
We have been routinely sanctioning them through current administration, and both sides in our political system have taken anti-China rhetoric as orthodoxy.
Yes we have bad relations with them, and yes they are interested in knowing what we are up to.
Yes. Why do we not assume every government is trying their best to bribe/spy/steal things from both our government and our industry? Of course they are.
Exactly, they do exactly as we do. We need to faking super naivety about the world, and stop pretending we are pure as the driven snow.
Any particular reasons that US relations with China have been bad lately?
What bad relations, Danny? Your precious GOPe and D palz have sold out the country for almost 40 years. And you shill for them still!
Deals like this are just a headline. A facility for spying is already there in some fashion and most likely looks nondescript.
I would suspect that the Russians have been using Cuba for an intelligence collection base since around 1959, just as we’ve been collecting intel on China and USSR/Russia since the ’50’s (or before). The era where “gentlemen don’t read each others mail” ended somewhere in the ’30’s.
Earlier the British cracked German codes in WW1.
True, but the direct quote is from (Henry?) Stimson in 1929.
That is true but even at the time it was somewhat dated.
Actually, since he was Secretary of State, it was policy.
We weren’t at war at the time. The first world war saw the first mass surveillance in the United States. The idea of mass surveillance outside of wartime was alien at the time, but the idea of not reading another gentleman’s letters died under Woodrow Wilson.
The next time after that the United States had to decide on “reading another gentleman’s mail” was the second world war.
Obviously, policy is downhill from necessity. When espionage became fashionable again, the policy changed – as I noted in my original comment.
I am sure that the CIA and the NSA will watch and observe the goings-on.
How can we complain when we’re trying to make the Ukraine a NATO ally right on Russia’s border?
We already have several NATO allies on Russia’s border.
The propaganda spokesman for the dotard-marionette, Biden, Administration denied that China was building a spy base in Cuba, naturally. No way these greasy, mendacious and self-serving Dumb-o-crat snakes are going to actually concede another massive foreign policy failure/humiliation/threat and yet more evidence that Dumb-o-crats’ transparent fecklessness, narcissism and naivete guarantee that they’ll never be taken seriously by the U.S.’s enemies.
What do they need a spy base for when Brandon is so ready, willing, and able to give them everything they want?
Fair point. China is probably building this base as a future contingency in response to the increasingly rare event of a GOP candidate managing to win the White House, against the combined sabotage machinations of the FBI/Deep State, mainstream media and Big Tech.
It’s also a humiliation tactic, coming right on the heels of their spy balloon which traversed the entire continental U.S., unmolested, until public criticism of his emasculated, feckless and derelict/negligent reaction forced dotard-marionette, Biden, into action.
All of this ignores the obvious: Not only is every diplomatic mission tasked with intelligence collection, so, undoubtedly, are other Chinese government run facilities in the US, like their “police stations”.