New radar in Cuba near US military base could facilitate Chinese espionage: experts

A think tank in Washington said Cuba is building a spy base at a site near the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay based on satellite imagery, in the latest upgrade of surveillance capabilities believed to be linked to China.

The base, under construction since 2021 but not publicly reported until now, is located east of the city of Santiago de Cuba, near the neighborhood known as El Salao, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report on Monday and released by the Cuban government. Wall Street Journal.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio immediately denied the claim that Cuba is harboring Chinese military interests on the island.

“The Wall Street Journal continues to launch an intimidation campaign related to #Cuba. Without citing a verifiable source or showing evidence, it seeks to scare the public with legends about Chinese military bases that do not exist and no one has seen, including the US embassy in Cuba,” de Cossio said on the social network X.

Cuba’s proximity to the United States and its military bases in the south make it a site for China, Washington’s main strategic rival, to try to gather intelligence signals.

CSIS called the new site a “powerful tool” that, once operational, will be able to monitor U.S. military air and sea activity.

The facility, known as an array of circularly arranged antennas with a diameter of about 130 to 200 meters, could be able to track signals up to 3,000-8,000 nautical miles (5,556 to 14,816 kilometers) away, CSIS said.

“Access to such a post would provide China with a strategic position close to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station,” he said, referring to the US military base about 70 kilometres east of Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city.

Such facilities were widely used during the Cold War, but Russia and the United States have since retired most of their sites in favor of more advanced technology, according to CSIS. However, the think tank said China has been building new such facilities, including at reef outposts in the South China Sea.

Last year, officials in President Joe Biden’s administration said Beining has been spying from Cuba for years and has made an effort to improve its data-gathering capabilities there starting in 2019 — allegations that both Beijing and Havana have denied.

The White House National Security Council and the U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s embassy in Washington said the United States had repeatedly “exaggerated” the idea of ​​Chinese spying and surveillance from Cuba.

“Such claims are nothing but slander,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the embassy.

CSIS also said satellite imagery from March 2024 shows Cuba’s largest active signals intelligence site is in Bejucal, near Havana, and linked to suspected Chinese intelligence activity for years.

According to CSIS, some radar systems installed in Cuba in recent years are capable of monitoring rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

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