While the world watches China’s aggression in the South China Sea and its threats toward Taiwan, a quieter – but no less serious – danger is forming just 90 miles off our coast in the United States. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is laying the groundwork for a strategic foothold in Cuba – not only to surveil the United States but to expand its authoritarian influence across the Western Hemisphere.
This is not an isolated development. It’s the latest push of a broader campaign by Beijing to undercut U.S. power and reshape the global order – starting in our own backyard.
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, China struck a secret agreement with the Cuban regime in 2023 to establish a signals intelligence base in Bejucal, a town long associated with Soviet-era espionage. This facility enables the CCP to intercept military, commercial, and even civilian communications across the United States, especially from military and space installations in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. The reported presence of additional facilities and infrastructure upgrades suggests a multi-site effort aimed at long-term, persistent surveillance.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in its 2024 Annual Threat Assessment, warns that China is pursuing overseas military and logistics facilities to project power globally. Cuba features prominently on that list. The danger is not just what China is listening to – it’s what it’s preparing for.
China’s ambitions in Cuba go well beyond antennas and listening posts. The CCP is exporting the full toolkit of its domestic overseas repression: surveillance tech, economic coercion, and the security apparatus needed to enforce this control. Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant blacklisted by the U.S. for its ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army, has laid the foundation for CCP eyes on Cuba’s state-run internet, giving it the ability to monitor, censor, and control our close southern neighbor. Freedom House has also repeatedly cited this infrastructure as central to the Cuban regime’s repression of dissidents and free expression.
Meanwhile, China has quietly become Cuba’s second-largest trading partner and a major creditor. In recent years, Beijing extended nearly $6 billion in loans and credit to prop up the Cuban economy. According to Reuters, this includes loan forgiveness, new investments, and even direct donations of fuel and basic goods – investments that come with political strings attached. When Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz met with President Xi Jinping last November, the two regimes signed a series of agreements further deepening their strategic alignment.
What’s unfolding is not simply a bilateral relationship; it’s the template for China’s global model. Autocratic client states are sustained by Beijing’s money and technology in exchange for access, influence, and strategic positioning. And it’s spreading. From Venezuela to El Salvador, China is leveraging infrastructure investments and digital tools to displace U.S. influence and advance its authoritarian vision.
We cannot allow the Western Hemisphere to become a testing ground for China’s power projection. The CCP’s collaboration with the Díaz-Canel regime in Cuba is the sharpest warning yet that this strategy is accelerating. To respond, the United States needs more than just press releases – it needs a plan.
That plan must begin by reasserting our leadership in the region. First, Congress must fully fund and expand U.S. Southern Command, which plays a vital role in countering foreign influence and safeguarding U.S. interests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Second, we must support democratic allies and partners – such as Colombia, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic – in providing alternatives to CCP investments that undermine their sovereignty. That means more diplomatic engagement, yes, but also providing real economic alternatives.
USAID’s work is essential to combatting CCP inroads. Just after the Trump administration’s cuts to in-country efforts, Colombia announced plans to strengthen ties with China by adding new shipping routes and signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. This is a telling example of how China is swooping into the DOGE-created vacuum.
Third, we should help partners build independent telecommunications networks that are secure and free from Chinese surveillance infrastructure. That includes technical assistance, financing, and public-private partnerships to counter Huawei and its clones.
Finally, we must make clear – through legislation, diplomacy, and action – that foreign military expansion in our hemisphere is a red line. 202 years ago, President James Monroe made clear with his eponymous doctrine that the Americas are not open to outside intervention. China’s growing presence in Cuba is not a curiosity. It’s a beachhead. If we do not confront it now, we will face an entrenched surveillance and military outpost backed by a regime committed to undermining the democratic order.
This is no longer a hypothetical. It is a reality we must face head on.
The stakes could not be higher. The United States has long been a beacon of democratic values in the Western Hemisphere. But if we allow authoritarian regimes to take root on our doorstep, we risk losing both influence and credibility – not just in Cuba, but across the region.
This is a test of will. The CCP is betting that Washington won’t respond. We must prove them wrong.