The Chinese Communist Party has made plans to build a secret spy base just 100 miles from the United States mainland in Cuba, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing U.S. officials familiar with the highly classified intelligence, that China is due to soon set up the eavesdropping outpost.
The spy base will focus on intercepting electronic communications, or signals intelligence, from American networks throughout the southeastern U.S.
The move reflects a brazen challenge to U.S. sovereignty, the Journal reported, citing the officials.
China offered Cuba several billion dollars to host the spy base.
The two communist countries have agreed to the deal in principle.
Officials said Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration was alarmed when it discovered the informal deal.
Establishing the signals intelligence operating base in Cuba would give America’s greatest military and political rival unprecedented access to sources of information about the U.S. that Beijing could use to circumvent U.S. interests.
“While I cannot speak to this specific report, we are well aware of — and have spoken many times to — the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in this hemisphere,” John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, told the Journal.
“We monitor it closely, take steps to counter it, and remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home, in the region, and around the world.”
U.S. intelligence discovered the plans in recent weeks, and officials told the Journal they considered it reliable.
They did not say exactly where the base would be located or when construction is expected to begin.
Neither did they explain how the Biden administration could thwart the plans.
“Establishing this facility signals a new, escalatory phase in China’s broader defense strategy,” Craig Singleton, an analyst at the Foundation For Defense of Democracies, told the Journal.
“It’s a bit of a game changer.
“The selection of Cuba is also intentionally provocative.”
Signals intelligence includes email, phone calls, and satellite transmissions, as well as other forms of electronic communication.
Cuba is only 100 miles from Florida, a state that hosts 21 U.S. military bases, including the headquarters of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
The base could also be used to monitor shipping traffic around the Caribbean.
The revelations continue as the Biden administration seeks to soothe an increasingly acrimonious relationship with Beijing and re-establish communication channels that China cut off in the wake of the spy balloon shootdown.
China launched a surveillance balloon that transited across the continental U.S. and apparently hovered over several sensitive U.S. military sites, collecting information.
The U.S. shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina.
Biden said in May that he expected a thaw in U.S.-China relations, according to the Journal.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet officials — potentially including Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping — in China after postponing his trip in February due to the balloon incident.
