Dockworkers walk past a Cosco Shipping container ship at the Chinese port of Yantai on December 29, 2022. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

The Chinese Communist Party’s spying installations in Cuba, which the United States has reportedly known about since 2001, reflect Beijing’s plans for global dominance.

Read Hudson China Center Director Miles Yu’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on why every day the Chinese are allowed to spy from Cuba brings those plans closer to fruition—and why now is a good time to crack down. 

Key Insights

1. As far back as 2001, US intelligence was reported to have known about the existence of the Chinese eavesdropping operation in Cuba.

These espionage efforts began in earnest after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The CCP, which viewed the Soviet disintegration as a betrayal of the communist cause, quickly seized the opportunity to use Cuba as a frontline anti-American station. As a result, Beijing and Havana have signed a series of agreements—some open, others secret—that have allowed China to modernize Cuba’s obsolete Soviet weapons and telecommunications systems.

2. Sanctioned weapons and equipment are ferried over, under disguise as normal shipments of commercial goods, by Chinese shipping giant Cosco.

Occasionally, China’s illicit arms shipments are caught and exposed. In March 2015, a 28,000-ton Cosco transport ship with self-loading cranes stopped at a Colombian port for replenishment en route to Cuba. When Colombian customs agents boarded it, they discovered a large undeclared cache of Chinese arms, including 99 rockets, 3,000 cannon shells, 100 tons of military-grade dynamite, and 2.6 million detonators, all manufactured by CCP defense manufacturer Norinco. These munitions had been hidden under the declared merchandise on the Cosco ship.

3. Eavesdropping on the military communications traffic between these facilities will provide China with important insights into how US forces train and plan for conflict.

Setting aside the politically potent symbolism of a foreign spy station 90 miles from the US mainland, the joint eavesdropping project between Havana and Beijing poses a national security problem of the most serious order. For the past 20 years, both political parties have been willfully indolent about this threat. American leaders of all political stripes need to remove their blinders and confront it.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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