China will install an electronic espionage base in Cuba against the US, according to The Wall Street Journal

The Chinese and Cuban governments would have reached a secret agreement for China to establish aelectronic spy base on the island, in order to capture signals and steal US military secrets, as reported this Thursday by the newspaperThe Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing as sources officials familiar with "highly classified" intelligence reports.

In exchange for allowing the use of their territory,The Cuban government would collect billions of dollars at a time of dramatic economic crisis like the one the island is going through.

According to reports, Beijing has already reached "an agreement in principle" to build the espionage facility, which would allow the Chinese intelligence services to monitor military bases in the southern United States, as well as monitor the movement of American ships through the Strait of Florida.

The officials who leaked the informationThey did not provide the exact location of the base in Cuba, nor did they specify whether construction could have already begun.

The revelation raised alarm within the government ofJoe Biden, which considers China as its most important economic and military rival.

Analysts estimate that a Chinese base with advanced military and intelligence capabilities so close to the United States could unleash an unprecedented threat.

“While I cannot speak to this specific report, "We are very aware of the efforts of the People's Republic of China to invest in infrastructure around the world that may have military purposes, including in this hemisphere."said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, in a statement released by press agencies.

“We monitor it closely, take countermeasures and are confident that we can meet all our security commitments at home, in the region and around the world,” he added.

“The threat to the United States from Cuba is not only real, it is much worse than this”, the Cuban-American senator wrote on TwitterMarco Rubio.

The agreement between China and Cuba would once again raise tension between the government ofXi Jinping and the Joe Biden Administration, after in February aalleged Chinese spy balloon will fly over the United Statess before the US military made the decision toknock it down.

The agencyReuters believes that the revelation ofWSJ It could also raise doubts about a trip to China that the Secretary of State,Antony Blinken, he was planning to make in the coming weeks, months after Washington's top diplomat canceled a previous visit over the spy balloon incident.

For the Cuban government, on the other hand, the income of millions of dollars from an agreement like the one described would be a respite in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis.

At the time of writing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) of Cuba has not commented on the leak of the American newspaper.