The Chinese regime’s reported plan to create a secret eavesdropping facility in Cuba should trigger an alarm for all in the United States, according to lawmakers.
In its latest challenge aimed at the United States, China has reached a deal with Cuba to install an electronic spy base on the island, just about 100 miles from Florida, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials familiar with highly classified intelligence.
Such a distance is close enough for Chinese intelligence services to garner electronic communications from the southeastern United States, home to many military bases, potentially including emails, phone calls, and satellite transmission data, the officials have said. They said Beijing agreed to pay Havana billions of dollars over the arrangement.
Revelation of the secret intelligence facility sparked wide concerns in Washington.
“Anytime there is surveillance so close to the United States, there ought to be alarm bells for us,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Epoch Times.
In the eyes of Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a long-time China critic, the implications of Beijing’s plan are grim.
“This move by Communist China presents grave threats to America’s national security that cannot be ignored. Every American should be up in arms about this. It’s not just spying on the government, which is bad enough, it’s spying on you, seeing your emails and your data,” he said in a statement.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) described the news as “ominous.”
“I think that another indication of how China is pushing the envelope so I think we all need to be keeping an eye on that one,” he told The Epoch Times.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), while noting he has yet to look at the details of the proposal, told The Epoch Times: “we ought not to be surprised that the People’s Republic of China is continuing to have aggressive behavior toward the United States, which is why we need a strong stance to push back on it.”
Sixty-one years have passed since the United States and the now-collapsed Soviet Union came dangerously close to a nuclear conflict.
In what became known as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, Moscow placed nuclear weapons in Cuba, prompting the United States to quarantine the island nation. The Soviet Union eventually backed down and removed the installations.
Beijing’s new Cuban deal, coming amidst U.S.–China tensions following the incursion of a Chinese surveillance balloon across the United States, is reminiscent of those moments.
It “reminds us we are in a New Cold War that, once again, has come to our doorstep,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) in a statement. “Our ardent diplomatic pursuit of the CCP in the aftermath of the spy balloon has only emboldened CCP aggression.”
Gallagher, the chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said the report calls for the United States to take “long-overdue actions” to counter Beijing, including ending export licenses for chips to blacklisted Chinese telecom provider Huawei, restricting outbound investment in crucial sectors in China, closing trade loopholes that allow Chinese imports to enter the United States tariff-free, enhancing research security, and curbing Chinese land purchases near sensitive military bases.
“We must make it clear that, as President [John] Kennedy said over sixty years ago on the eve of a previous crisis in Cuba, ‘one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission,’” he said.