United States and Cuba Deny Reports of China Building New Spy Base

Illustration. (Pexels/Francesco Ungaro)

JAKARTA - The governments of the United States and Cuba have cast doubt on a Wall Street Journal report that reported Thursday that China had reached a secret agreement with Cuba to build an electronic wiretapping facility on the island, roughly 100 miles (160 km) from Florida, US.

Installing such a spy would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from the southeastern US, where there are many US military bases, as well as monitor ship traffic, the paper reported, citing US officials familiar with classified intelligence.

US Central Command Headquarters is based in Tampa. Meanwhile, Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, the largest US military base, is in North Carolina.

The two countries reportedly reached an agreement in principle, officials said, with China paying Cuba "several billion dollars" to allow the wiretapping stations, according to the Journal.

"We've seen the report. It's not accurate," John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters, but did not elaborate on what he thought was wrong.

He said the United States had "real concerns" about China's relationship with Cuba and was monitoring it closely.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense, said: "We are not aware of China and Cuba developing a new type of spying station."

In Havana, Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio dismissed the report as "absolutely lying and baseless," calling it a US fabrication meant to justify Washington's decades-old economic embargo on the island.

He also reiterated that Cuba rejects all foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said: "We are not aware of the case and as a result we are unable to comment at this time."

Intelligence information about the agreement was gathered in recent weeks and is quite conclusive, the Journal reported.

The agreement between the two countries that have communist governments has raised concerns in President Joe Biden's administration, the paper said, posing a new threat near America's shores.

The Journal said US officials declined to provide further details on the proposed wiretapping station location or whether construction had started.

The reported deal comes as Washington and Beijing take tentative steps to defuse tensions that soared after a spy balloon suspected of belonging to China crossed the United States before being shot down by Uncle Sam's military off the East Coast in February.

It could also raise questions about the fate of a trip to China that US officials say Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning in the coming weeks. Previously, Blinken canceled a visit to the Bamboo Curtain country due to the spy balloon incident.

"We have real concerns about China's relationship with Cuba, and we have been concerned since day one of administration about Chinese activity in our hemisphere and around the world," Kirby said.

It is known that being an old Cold War enemy of the United States, Cuba has long been a 'hotbed of espionage and spy games'.

The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 started after Moscow began placing Soviet nuclear weapons on the island.

The Soviets installed a spy base on the Island at Lourdes, just south of Havana, in the mid-1960s, with a satellite dish aimed at Cuba's northern neighbor.

Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin closed the facility in the early 2000s.