On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that China forged a deal with Cuba to set up a spy station on the island. However, Cuba has had other listening posts that intercept signals from commercial and — yikes! — nearby US military installations. Just how long they’ve been active is unclear, but we know that they were upgraded in 2019.

Nonsense, said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby:

I’ve seen that press report, it’s not accurate. What I can tell you is that we have been concerned since day one of this administration about China’s influence activities around the world; certainly in this hemisphere and in this region, we’re watching this very, very closely.

Plus, Department of Defense spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder also called the report bunk. During a briefing at the Pentagon, Ryder said:

I can tell you based on the information that we have that that is not accurate, that we are not aware of China and Cuba developing any type of spy station. 

“Separately, I would say that the relationship that those two countries share is something that we continuously monitor. I would say that – as you’ve heard us say many times – China’s activities both in our hemisphere and around the world, any concerning activities, are something that we will continue to watch closely. But in terms of that particular report, no, it’s not accurate.

On top of that, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío tweeted on Saturday:

The slanderous speculation continues, evidently promoted by certain media to cause harm and alarm without observing minimum patterns of communication and without providing data or evidence to support what they disseminate.

Well, of course he did. But it turns out that the official who reported the China-Cuba spy collaborative was correct. And the White House had to confirm on Sunday that yes, China did team up with Cuba to spy on the US.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China for talks on June 18. This spy scandal could make tensions even more awkward.

How China and Cuba Started to Collaborate

Cuba’s proximity to the United States has long been attractive to communist nations looking to gain an advantage on the United States. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union tried to set up nuclear missile bases in Cuba, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. After negotiations, the Soviets backed down.

Now it’s China who is making nice with Cuba. However, they already have a relationship, since China is Cuba’s biggest trading partner. Beijing also takes part in Havana’s agricultural, pharmaceutical, telecommunications and infrastructural industries. Moreover, China owns a large portion of Cuba’s foreign debt — great leverage. And … the WSJ reported that Cuba will receive “several billion dollars” from China for the spy site.

China Daily, the English language mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, also reported in April that Premier Li Qiang called for “strengthened strategic coordination and pragmatic cooperation between China and Cuba to make joint efforts to build a China-Cuba community with a shared future.” One can assume that includes building a spy base on the island.

Elliott Abrams, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote of the proposed spy base:

As was true for the USSR, this new Chinese facility, if established as reported, will be China’s closest and most advantageous site for electronic eavesdropping on the United States. Just as the Soviet site was operated jointly by Cuban intelligence, Soviet military intelligence, and the KGB’s SIGINT service, we can expect that several Chinese spy agencies and elements of the People’s Liberation Army will join Cuban intelligence to work at the new facility.

Meanwhile, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), who lead the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, issued a joint statement on their concerns over the spy station:

We are deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people. The United States must respond to China’s ongoing and brazen attacks on our nation’s security.

The US Has Been Failing

Remember that Chinese spy balloon that flew across the United States, including military bases?

Joe Biden said that concern over the balloon was “silly.” Besides, he insisted, we’ll be witnessing a “thaw” in relations between the two countries.

That was two weeks ago. In the meantime, a Chinese fighter jet made aggressive moves within 400 yards of a US Air Force plane in international airspace. But that wasn’t all: early in June, a Chinese warship came within 150 yards of a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait. The USS Chung-Hoon was conducting joint exercises with Canada when the warship cut across its bow.

Screenshot: @spotLightoncn/Twitter.

In both cases, China defended its actions. Beijing has also harassed aircraft and ships from other countries as well, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Even Biden’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley warned that China has ramped up its aggression.

Yet Joe Biden promised a “thaw” in relations with China. As for Cuba — Biden’s reversal of Trump-era policies that restricted travel to and from the island didn’t result in any improvement with relations with them, either. Instead, Cuba has been cracking down more on dissidents and becoming closer to China.

But Donald Trump, despite his bluster, wasn’t exactly a tough guy towards Beijing, either. Remember that the Chinese-Cuban listening posts were updated in 2019 — during the Trump administration. But when were they first built? Under Barack Obama’s administration? Under Trump’s? And where was either president then?

Trump himself gushed about Chinese president Xi Jinping in a cringeworthy interview with Tucker Carlson in April:

President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find it. There’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.

On top of that, Xi has hot interpreters, too!

A beautiful female interpreter, she was very beautiful. She was very professional. She spoke every word for him.

Trump: "President Xi is a brilliant man … the look, the brain, the whole thing" pic.twitter.com/nvtXKiHEHT

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2023

Biden, Trump — neither of them are Ronald Reagan redux winning the Cold War, are they? And yet these two are vying to return to the White House in 2025.

We can — and must — do better than this.

Featured image: abrinsky/flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.