Is Chinese Intelligence Collection on the U.S. from Cuba?

Is Chinese Intelligence collecting on the U.S. from a Cuban Base of Operations?

China has replaced Russia as Fidel Castro's main partner for electronic espionage and other activities directed against the United States in the Western hemisphere....

Until recently, Russia paid Castro more than $200 million annually in much-needed hard currency for use of its massive electronic spy station at Lourdes. In a surprise move, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin suddenly withdrew his support and 1,500 advisers from Cuba in the wake of the September 11th attacks on Washington and New York. Now China, which had been building its own spy stations in Cuba, has supplanted the Russians as Castro's primary electronic espionage partner. Beijing has built a sophisticated new signals intelligence complex in Bejucal, Cuba, operating under the cover of Radio China.

WIDE ARRAY OF TARGETS

Lourdes’ targets are varied: the commercial data dumps from the one branch office of a multinational bank to another, the latest progress of a microchip assembly plant under construction, the White House political office’s travel arrangements, or a reporter talking to his sources — if it is carried by satellite rather than fiber optic cable. In the early days of the Clinton administration, one high-ranking CIA official told a gathering of journalists who cover national security issues: “Everyone of you in this room has his or her phone calls monitored out of Lourdes.”

“China’s Strategic Reach into Latin America”
Testimony of Albert Santoli before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission .

In July 2005, the threat of a Chinese nuclear first-strike against US major cities was stated publicly by the Dean of China’s National War College. Before or after such a cataclysmic attack, electronic warfare out of Cuba to jam US emergency broadcast communications would debilitate US emergency response systems causing further widespread chaos and casualties.

"For China the utilization of Cuba as an electronic spy base is of great importance because of its strategic location in the United States' backyard", commented a former U.S. intelligence officer. The Chinese electronic spy bases have been camouflaged under a pretext of collaboration between China and Cuba in the field of electronic and radio communications, who signed expanded agreements in February, 2004 during a visit to Havana by the Chinese foreign minister, Chi Haotian.

The base of antennas in Santiago de Cuba is mainly dedicated to the capture of U.S. military satellite communications, meanwhile in Bejucal the Chinese have created a complex interception system of telephone communications.

In effect, the Chinese are engaged in building a multi-dimensional strategic and tactical surrounding of the United States: on the Latin American land mass and islands, beneath the Pacific Ocean waves and in aero and cyber space. A new generation of well-schooled and determined Chinese strategists, have become grand masters of the age old Chinese game of strategy called "Wei Chi" or "Goh." In a Wei Chi contest, a player makes the decisive winning move when his opponent is completely surrounded and unable to maneuver, as in the clutches of a python. In effect, we could label China's growing strategic ties with Havana and other Latin American nations, as well as the ability to attack from the sea and in cyber space makes the ancient Wei Chi technique far more effective today.