Satellite Images Show Expansion of Suspected Chinese Spy Bases in Cuba

WASHINGTON—Images captured from space show the growth of Cuba’s electronic eavesdropping stations that are believed to be linked to China, including new construction at a previously unreported site about 70 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, according to a new report.

The study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, follows reporting last year by The Wall Street Journal that China and Cuba were negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, including establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.

At the time, the Journal reported that Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t disclose their locations. It couldn’t be determined which, if any, of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report.

The concern about the stations, former officials and analysts say, is that China is using Cuba’s geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to scoop up sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities, and military and commercial shipping.

Chinese facilities on the island “could also bolster China’s use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens,” said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University.

The White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

Authors of the CSIS report, after analyzing years’ worth of satellite imagery, found that Cuba has significantly upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and pinpointed four sites—at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay and Calabazar.

While some of the sites described by CSIS, such as the one at Bejucal, have previously been identified as listening posts, the satellite imagery provides new details about their capabilities, growth over the years and likely links with China.

“These are active locations with an evolving mission set,” said Matthew Funaiole, a senior follow at CSIS and the report’s chief author.

The report comes amid growing concerns about Great Power competition in the Caribbean and elsewhere in Latin America, where Washington for decades has tried to prevent rivals from gaining military and economic advantage.

China is building a megaport on Peru’s Pacific coast. Russia, meanwhile, recently sent a nuclear-powered submarine, capable of firing Kalibr cruise missiles, and a frigate to Cuba’s Havana harbor.

In its annual threat assessment released in February, the U.S. intelligence community said publicly for the first time that China is pursuing military facilities in Cuba, without providing details.

Chinese officials stress that the U.S. has a vast global network of military bases and listening posts. “The U.S. is no doubt the leading power in terms of eavesdropping and does not even spare its Allies,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, wrote in a statement. “The U.S. side has repeatedly hyped up China’s establishment of spy bases or conducting surveillance activities in Cuba.”

Cuba’s embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The report says that two of the sites near Havana—Bejucal and Calabazar—contain large dish antennas that appear designed to monitor and communicate with satellites. The report notes that while Cuba doesn’t have any satellites, the antennas would be useful for China, which does have a substantial space program.

The newest dish antenna was installed at Bejucal in January, said the report, which found that and other infrastructure upgrades at the sites over the last decade.

The most recent of the four sites, still being built and not previously known publicly, is at El Salao, outside the city of Santiago de Cuba in the eastern part of the country and not far from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.

Construction there began in 2021, and the site appears designed to hold a large formation of antennas known as a circularly disposed antenna array, which can be used to find and intercept electronic signals, the report said.

The site, when completed, could potentially monitor communications and other electronic signals coming from the Guantanamo base, said Funaiole.

The U.S. and Russia have largely abandoned this sort of antenna array in favor of newer technologies, but China has been building them at several militarized outposts in the South China Sea, he said.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated its largest overseas site for electronic spying, known as signals intelligence, at Lourdes, just outside Havana. The site, which reportedly hosted hundreds of Soviet, Cuban and other Eastern-bloc intelligence officers, closed down after 2001, and its current status isn’t clear.

China has played a larger role on the island in more recent years, and according to a White House statement last year, conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019.

Brett Forrest contributed to this article.

Write to Warren P. Strobel at [email protected]