China has reached a secret deal with Cuba to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island roughly 100 miles from Florida, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing US officials familiar with classified intelligence.
Such a spy installation would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from the southeastern US, which houses many US military bases, as well as monitor ship traffic, the newspaper reported.
The US Central Command headquarters is based in Tampa. Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, the largest US military base, is based in North Carolina.
The countries have reached an agreement in principle, the officials said, with China to pay Cuba "several billion dollars" to allow the eavesdropping station, according to the Journal.
"I cannot speak to this specific report, but we are well aware of-and have spoken many times to the People's Republic of China's efforts to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in this hemisphere," John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement.
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