Representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Carlos Fernández de Cossio, a foreign ministry official in Cuba, said reports of plans to build a Chinese spy base in the country were “totally false and unsubstantiated”. A representative of the Chinese embassy said Beijing was “not aware of the case”.
China and the United States regularly conduct mutual surveillance operations. The United States sends surveillance flights over the South China Sea, deploys military assets to allied host nations around the Pacific, and sells and supplies weapons to Taiwan, a democratic island that the Chinese government considers part of its territory.
US officials have accused China in recent years of ambitious hacking attacks against the US government and companies, trying to recruit agents and resources inside and outside the US, and monitoring and threatening Chinese dissidents abroad.
That Beijing appears to be pursuing a closer deal with Cuba is not in itself surprising, analysts say. The two countries have forged ever closer ties since the end of the Cold War. China is Cuba’s largest trading partner and plays a role in the island’s agricultural, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and infrastructure industries. Beijing also owns a significant portion of Havana’s external debt.
Cuba’s proximity to the United States has long made it a desirable strategic foothold for U.S. adversaries, perhaps most famously during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union made and then withdrew from plans to place nuclear missiles on the island nation. Today, the United States has a largely uniform relationship with Cuba, which, like China, is controlled by a communist government.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba were frozen shortly after Fidel Castro’s communist regime came to power in 1959; relationships were only fully restored during President Barack Obama’s tenure. President Donald J. Trump reversed part of that move by reinstating some travel bans on Cuba and re-designating the country as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Cuban officials have asked the Biden administration to rescind this designation, but it has remained in place. However, Mr. Biden has relaxed some of Mr. Trump’s other restrictions. Cuba also continues to consider the US base at Guantánamo Bay, founded in the early 20th century, as an illegal occupation.
