By Juan Camilo Escorcia | 2023-07-06

China's inroads into Latin America are raising concerns among security agencies in the Western Hemisphere, in particular the recent news about a Chinese "spy base" and military training facility in Cuba.

Analysts have long stressed the need for joint action by Latin American countries and the United States to address the security risks posed by China's military presence in the region.

They emphasise, however, that such action should not be seen as a provocation or a threat to Beijing but rather as a necessary measure to protect their own interests.

"The US needs a broader coherent response to China's growing presence in Latin America," James Bosworth, a political, economic and security analyst and a specialist on Latin America, wrote June 12 for the World Politics Review (WPR).

"In that long view, keeping lines of communication open is critical, both between the US and China, as well as between the US and its partners in the region," he said.

"An important first step is to get Latin America to care about the issue."

Soviet era spy base

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) broke the news on June 8 that China and Cuba had reached a secret agreement for Beijing to establish an electronic eavesdropping base on the island.

The spy base would be situated in Bejucal, Cuba, 32km south of Havana and about 160km from US Southern Command headquarters in Miami.

After the newspaper reported the deal, the Cuban government denied its existence, while Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference that he was not aware of the situation.

However, a day later, Beijing warned the United States against "interfering in Cuba's internal affairs".

Although the initial reports in the press indicated that China was installing a new spy base in Cuba, the US government has since described this information as "inaccurate".

It appears that China is instead using an old Soviet-era listening base that operated in Bejucal from 1960 to 2002. The base, known as the Lourdes SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) station, was once one of the largest such facilities in the world.

A White House official on June 10 told AFP on condition of anonymity that China has been operating an intelligence unit in Cuba for years and upgraded it in 2019 in an effort to improve its presence on the Caribbean island.

"This is well-documented in the intelligence record," the official said.

The United States contends that the base is used to intercept US electronic communications, according to a US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) document from November 2022.

"[China's Communist Party] maintains physical presences at Soviet-era intelligence facilities at Bejucal in what appears to be a signals intelligence collection operation," the FCC document says, citing a 2018 report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

"Whether the reports about Cuba are true or not, there is little doubt that China is using Latin America for espionage," Bosworth said.

"Having a spy base operating just off the US coast is a threat [Washington] cannot simply ignore and should even take seriously," he said.

It would offer Beijing "an enhanced ability to monitor communications within the US, including some radio frequencies that can't be monitored from the other side of the globe", he added.

Washington fears the base would allow China to monitor US ship traffic and capture communications from the southeastern United States.

Chinese telecom giants involved

The alarm over the spy base in Cuba follows the Chinese spy balloon incident earlier this year.

The balloon spent several days flying over North America, including over a series of classified sites, until the US military shot it down on February 4.

After shooting down the first Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean, the US government notified Latin American countries that a second balloon would be crossing over their territory.

The second Chinese "high-altitude surveillance balloon" flew over Costa Rica and Nicaragua, passed over Colombian territory, and then entered Venezuela, according to officials.

Beijing denies it uses spy balloons and says the huge craft shot down off the east coast of the United States was for weather research, while the one spotted over South America was for pilot training.

The balloon fiasco prompted renewed focus on China's largest technology company, Huawei.

Huawei, which outwardly is a benign cell phone and consumer product manufacturer, in reality is supported heavily by the Chinese government and has deep links to the People's Liberation Army.

Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom giant, also appear to be involved in the spy base.

US officials have reviewed intelligence stating that workers from Huawei and ZTE had entered and exited facilities suspected of housing Chinese eavesdropping operations in Cuba, the WSJ reported June 21.

Although Huawei and ZTE are not known to produce advanced eavesdropping tools, they possess the technology that could be used to facilitate such operations, including servers and network equipment capable of transmitting data to China.

Diplomatic efforts

The United States must develop a long-term strategy in conjunction with Latin America to counteract China's growing presence in the region, said Marcela Prieto, vice president of institutional relations at Visión Américas, a Washington-based public relations firm.

In the short term, she said, Washington must adopt a "hard power" approach to diplomacy. This does not mean opening the door to war but rather starting to show its teeth and demonstrating that it is prepared to respond to threats.

However, it is also important to maintain a "soft power" approach to diplomacy, which has been effective in stopping some of China's progress through dialogue.

This is the approach that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken should continue after his recent visit to Beijing, Prieto said.

Blinken warned Chinese leaders about his government's "deep concerns" regarding the reports about Beijing's sensitive operations in Cuba.

"I made very clear we would have deep concerns about PRC [People's Republic of China] intelligence or military activities in Cuba," he told reporters in London on June 20, following his trip to Beijing.

"This is something we're going to be monitoring very, very closely, and we've been very clear about that," he said. "And we will protect our homeland, we will protect our interests."

Blinken met President Xi Jinping and Chinese foreign policy chiefs during his two-day visit, the highest-level US trip to China in almost five years.

Washington says that Havana and Beijing are in "advanced" talks about building a military facility on Cuba's northern coast.

US officials have contacted Cuban officials to try to stop the agreement, expressing concern that Cuba would be giving up its sovereignty by allowing China to build a military base on its soil, the WSJ reported June 20.

Nevertheless, Blinken stressed the importance of dialogue with China and noted the "long relationship" between Xi and US President Joe Biden.

"It would be irresponsible not to engage, irresponsible because it makes more likely the possibility of misunderstandings, miscalculations and thus conflict," he said.