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China has reached a secret deal with Cuba to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island roughly 100 miles from Florida, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing U.S. officials familiar with classified intelligence.
Such a facility would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from the southeastern United States, which houses many U.S. military bases, as well as monitor ship traffic, the newspaper reported.
The U.S. Central Command headquarters is based in Tampa. Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. military base, is based in North Carolina.
The countries have reached an agreement in principle, the officials said, with China to pay Cuba “several billion dollars” to allow the eavesdropping station, according to the Journal.
“I cannot speak to this specific report, but 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 White House National Security Council, said in a statement.
