China Expands Intelligence-Gathering Sites in Cuba Near US Military Bases

Ninety-three miles from the Florida Keys, China is building an intelligence collection network that U.S. analysts say can monitor roughly 20 military installations across the southeastern United States — from submarine pens at Kings Bay, Georgia, to rocket launches at Cape Canaveral. Satellite imagery analyzed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has identified four signals intelligence (SIGINT) sites across Cuba, at least one of which features a massive antenna array with a projected intercept range of 3,000 to 8,000 nautical miles [1][2].

The facilities represent Beijing's first known SIGINT footprint in the Western Hemisphere. Their existence, first reported by the Wall Street Journal in June 2023 and progressively confirmed through open-source satellite analysis, has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China competition and a test case for American leverage over two adversaries — Cuba and China — that Washington has struggled to influence for decades.

The Four Sites: Locations, Capabilities, and Construction Timelines

CSIS analysts assessed nearly a dozen facilities across Cuba rumored to have Chinese connections and positively identified four as highly likely intelligence collection sites [1].

Bejucal, located in the hills overlooking Havana, is the largest and most established. The complex gained notoriety during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis for housing Soviet nuclear weapons. Today it hosts multiple dish antennas, at least five underground facility entrances built between 2010 and 2019, and — as of April 2025 satellite imagery — a new circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA) under construction, replacing a smaller array previously located nearby [2][3]. CDAAs use beamforming technology to identify the origin of radio signals across long distances, and the new Bejucal array is significantly larger than its predecessor.

Wajay, less than 10 kilometers north of Bejucal, has expanded from a single antenna in 2002 to 12 antennas at present, surrounded by security fencing, two guard posts, and a solar farm with mixed-use agricultural cover [1].

Calabazar, on Havana's outskirts, hosts dish, vertical, and horizontal antennas alongside a large solar farm installed after 2012. CSIS noted it had not previously been linked to China in public records [1].

El Salao, the most recently identified site, sits east of Santiago de Cuba — roughly 100 kilometers from Naval Station Guantánamo Bay. Under construction since 2021, its CDAA has a projected diameter of 130 to 200 meters [1][2]. However, satellite imagery from April 2025 shows construction has largely ceased: graded areas within the antenna rings are being reclaimed by vegetation, and only minor building work has continued over the past year [3].

The three Havana-area sites are oriented toward the Florida Strait and the southeastern U.S. mainland. El Salao, positioned on the island's opposite coast, would provide coverage of Caribbean sea lanes and the approaches to Guantánamo Bay.

What These Sites Can Actually Intercept

The technical capabilities of the Cuban SIGINT sites depend on antenna type, frequency range, and the encryption of target communications.

CDAAs of the size under construction at Bejucal and El Salao are designed for high-frequency (HF) direction finding. At the upper end of CSIS estimates, the El Salao array could detect signals from 8,000 nautical miles away — a radius that would encompass not only the entire continental United States but much of the Atlantic Ocean [1][2].

According to CSIS analyst Ryan Berg, who testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on May 6, 2025, the facilities may enable China to "monitor American detection and response capabilities, map electronic profiles of U.S. assets, and monitor sensitive U.S. installations" [4]. Specific installations identified as within collection range include:

• Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay (Georgia) — home port for the Atlantic fleet's Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines
• Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center — where SpaceX and military launches transmit telemetry data
• Naval Air Station Pensacola, MacDill Air Force Base (home of U.S. Central Command), and Tyndall Air Force Base
• U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida [4][5]

Source: CSIS Congressional Testimony

Data as of May 6, 2025CSV

The dish antennas at Bejucal are oriented to intercept satellite communications and track space launches. The facility's line-of-sight to Cape Canaveral means it could monitor commercial and military rocket telemetry in real time [1].

However, modern U.S. military communications increasingly rely on encrypted channels, frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology, and satellite-based links that are harder to intercept than the analog and HF signals these arrays are optimized for. James Andrew Lewis, director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at CSIS, acknowledged in 2023 that while Cuba's proximity puts it "like being part of the American phone network," the actual intelligence value depends on what the U.S. transmits in the clear [6].

The Lourdes Precedent: What History Teaches

Cuba has hosted foreign SIGINT operations before. The Soviet Union operated the Lourdes SIGINT station — located 18 kilometers southwest of Havana — from 1964 until 2001. At its peak, Lourdes was the largest Russian signals intelligence facility abroad, covering 28 square miles and staffed by 1,000 to 1,500 Russian engineers, technicians, and military personnel from the GRU, FAPSI, and SVR [7].

Lourdes intercepted microwave tower transmissions, communication satellite downlinks, and shortwave radio signals across the southeastern United States for nearly four decades. Washington was aware of its existence throughout but had no effective mechanism to force its closure. Diplomatic protests, economic sanctions, and the broader U.S. embargo on Cuba failed to dislodge the facility. It shut down only when Russia, facing post-Soviet economic constraints, decided the $200 million annual operating cost — including subsidies to Cuba — was no longer justified [7][8].

The parallel to today's Chinese sites is instructive. If six decades of embargo could not compel Cuba to close a Soviet listening post, the same tools are unlikely to succeed against a Chinese one — particularly when China's financial capacity vastly exceeds what post-Soviet Russia could offer.

Follow the Money: Cuba's Economic Desperation

Cuba's willingness to host Chinese intelligence infrastructure tracks closely with its economic decline. The island's GDP contracted by nearly 11% in 2020, and the economy has failed to recover: growth was -1.9% in 2023 and -1.1% in 2024 [9]. The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean projects a further 1.5% contraction in 2025 [10].

Source: World Bank Open Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2024CSV

Into this crisis, China has provided an estimated $7.8 billion in cumulative development financing since 2000, including port modernization, solar energy projects, and infrastructure investment [1]. Cuba's debt to China stood at $4.643 billion as of 2021, and Havana is currently negotiating restructuring of its banking and financial obligations to Beijing [10].

Source: CSIS / AidData

Data as of May 6, 2025CSV

The Wall Street Journal's original 2023 report stated that China had committed "several billion dollars" for the spy facility agreement, which also allegedly included a joint military training component [11]. The exact annual subsidy remains unclear — figures in public reporting range from the low hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars per year.

The financial relationship has not been frictionless. China cancelled a significant sugar import contract with Cuba — more than 400,000 tons annually — citing the lack of market reforms, and bilateral trade contracted 33% between 2017 and 2022 [10]. Yet Cuba's integration into China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in September 2025 signals deepening financial entanglement [10].

The economic logic is straightforward: Cuba needs cash, and China is willing to pay for a listening post 93 miles from Florida.

The Debate: Acute Threat or Inflated Alarm?

Official assessments of the Chinese sites have shifted markedly since 2023.

When the Wall Street Journal first reported the existence of a Chinese spy facility in Cuba in June 2023, the Pentagon pushed back. Press secretary Pat Ryder called the report "not accurate," and a senior White House official echoed that characterization [6][12]. The Biden administration later acknowledged that Chinese intelligence-gathering facilities had existed in Cuba "at least since 2019" but maintained that specific details in media reports were overstated [12].

By 2024, the tone had changed. CSIS published satellite imagery identifying four sites in July 2024, and by May 2025, CSIS analyst Ryan Berg was testifying before Congress that the facilities represented "a growing threat to the homeland" [2][4]. The House Homeland Security Committee's investigation, led by Republican members, described the sites as "potential CCP surveillance infrastructure" warranting immediate classified briefings for all members of Congress [13].

The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence, released by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, identified China broadly as the most serious foreign intelligence threat facing the United States [14]. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared in December 2025 that the U.S. would "restore military dominance in the Western Hemisphere" under a revived Monroe Doctrine [15].

Skeptics have not disappeared, however. Some intelligence professionals argue that the strategic alarm is amplified by political incentives — Cuba hawks in Congress have long sought harder lines on Havana, and the China threat narrative serves defense budget arguments. Lewis of CSIS noted in 2023 that "there's not a lot we can do" about a Chinese listening station in Cuba and that the intelligence value may be limited given modern encryption [6]. The fact that construction at El Salao appears to have stalled also complicates narratives of relentless Chinese expansion [3].

China's embassy has dismissed the CSIS reports as "pure fantasy" with "no factual basis," while Cuba has denied hosting foreign spy bases [6].

Pentagon Response and Countermeasures

The U.S. response has operated on multiple tracks.

Military posture: The Trump administration's 2025 National Security Strategy established a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, explicitly aiming to "deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities" in the Western Hemisphere [15][16]. Secretary Hegseth announced plans to increase naval forces in the region and "readjust" military presence.

Sanctions escalation: The administration expanded Cuba sanctions, imposed secondary sanctions threatening penalties against foreign enterprises doing business with Cuba, cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to the island, and indicted former Cuban president Raúl Castro for his role in the 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft [17][18].

Proposed technical countermeasures: Berg's May 2025 congressional testimony recommended five specific responses: classified briefings for all members of Congress, selective declassification of imagery to deter Chinese operations, establishment of explicit red lines against permanent PLA military basing, CISA-led hardening of civilian infrastructure against SIGINT collection, and engagement with Caribbean allies on vulnerability reduction [4].

Congressional action: Legislation has been proposed for a new national counterintelligence center emphasizing "offensive, proactive operations" against Chinese and Russian intelligence campaigns, which Pentagon advisers describe as "strategic efforts to undermine the United States through sabotage, influence, supply chain compromise, and cognitive manipulation" [19].

What has not been publicly disclosed is whether the Pentagon has upgraded encryption protocols for installations within range, altered operational patterns at Kings Bay or Cape Canaveral, or repositioned signals-emitting assets. Such countermeasures, if implemented, would likely remain classified.

Regional Dynamics: Allies and the Caribbean

The Chinese SIGINT sites do not only threaten the United States. CDAAs collect signals omnidirectionally, meaning Caribbean nations are also within their collection footprint — a point Secretary of State Marco Rubio has emphasized during two trips to the region [4][20].

Rubio's Caribbean diplomacy has sought to frame the Chinese presence as a shared threat, but the response from regional partners has been cautious. Many Caribbean and Latin American nations maintain economic relationships with China and are reluctant to be drawn into great-power competition. The "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, while directed at extra-hemispheric powers, has also generated resistance: critics in the region view it as a return to interventionist U.S. policy rather than a genuine partnership [16][21].

Analysts at Chatham House have described the strategy as "disordered," noting that the administration's simultaneous pressure on Cuba, Venezuela, and regional migration issues risks alienating the very allies it needs for multilateral action against Chinese intelligence activities [16].

No formal multilateral intelligence-sharing arrangement focused specifically on the Cuban SIGINT sites has been publicly announced, though the U.S. maintains bilateral defense cooperation agreements with several Caribbean nations.

What Diplomatic Leverage Actually Exists

The U.S. toolkit for addressing Chinese intelligence sites in Cuba is constrained by six decades of failed embargo policy.

Economic sanctions have not changed Cuban behavior on political prisoners, democratic reforms, or alignment with U.S. adversaries. Adding SIGINT facilities to the list of grievances is unlikely to produce different results. The Trump administration's expanded sanctions — including secondary measures targeting foreign businesses and the Castro indictment — represent the most aggressive posture in years, but analysts at the Peterson Institute for International Economics have noted that the approach is "aimed at China" as much as Cuba [22].

China, for its part, has explicitly backed Cuba against U.S. pressure. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated in May 2026 that "China firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its national sovereignty and national dignity and opposes external interference" [23]. Beijing urged Washington to end the embargo ahead of Trump's state visit to China, using the Cuba issue as a bargaining chip in broader bilateral negotiations.

Policy analysts have proposed several alternatives to pure coercion: conditional sanctions relief tied to verifiable intelligence-site closures, engagement with China on mutual restraint agreements for intelligence facilities in each other's hemispheres, and increased economic aid to Cuba from the U.S. or allies as an alternative to Chinese financing. None of these proposals has gained traction in the current political environment, where both parties compete to demonstrate toughness on China.

The Unresolved Question

The core tension remains unresolved: China is building intelligence infrastructure in America's backyard, but the United States has limited tools to stop it. Sanctions have not worked against Cuba for 60 years. Diplomatic engagement with China on the issue is complicated by broader strategic competition. Military options — beyond increased regional presence — are constrained by the risks of escalation.

The stalled construction at El Salao suggests the situation is not as linear as either alarmists or skeptics claim. China may be calibrating its investment based on U.S. reactions, Cuban economic conditions, or technical assessments. The upgraded Bejucal facility, meanwhile, continues to expand.

What is clear is that the 93 miles of water between Cuba and Florida remain one of the most contested intelligence frontiers in the world — just as they were during the Cold War, when Soviet technicians at Lourdes listened to American phone calls for 37 years before economics, not diplomacy, shut the operation down.