China's Spy Station Jostles Washington --- Planned listening post in Cuba comes as Blinken prepares to go to Beijing on June 18.

"China's plans for an eavesdropping station in Cuba serves as a marker for Beijing's global power ambitions, planting its spiraling rivalry with the U.S. on America's doorstep.

The listening post, which will be 100 miles off Florida, could give the Chinese military capabilities to monitor communications across a wide stretch of the southern U.S.

More important, the facility roots China in a region of economic and geopolitical importance, broadens the playing field as it jostles Washington for influence and turns the tables on an enduring sore point for Beijing -- U.S. spying off Chinese shores.

"The symbolism is much bigger," said Michael Mazarr, an international security specialist at Rand Corp. "The days of the United States thinking of the China challenge as one limited to the Indo-Pacific, with the U.S. being the one to encroach on the other's region in security terms, those days are over."

Washington and Beijing are preparing for a visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that could include a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to officials on both sides. Blinken is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on June 18, a U.S. official said, his visit having been postponed from February after the appearance of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

Beijing has for decades decried what it sees as U.S. intrusiveness for flying surveillance aircraft and sailing military survey vessels and other warships near Chinese shores or through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, areas China sees as vital for its security.

China's defense minister recently blamed the U.S. for recent close encounters between their militaries and urged Washington to retreat. "What's the point of going there?" asked Gen. Li Shangfu at a regional security conference in Singapore.

While a Cuba eavesdropping facility will give Beijing the opportunity to engage in tit-for-tat, it is unlikely meant as a bargaining chip. The U.S. isn't likely to pull back military deployments from China's periphery, given Washington's concerns about Beijing's more assertive posture and American security commitments to allies from Japan to Australia.

Rather, the Cuba post is a sign that China sees its struggle with the U.S. as global and that it must operate worldwide to fend off Washington and protect Chinese interests.China has set up facilities that could service its navy in Asia and the Pacific and is on a global search for basing sites.

China has for many years looked to Cuba, with its Communist government, as a possible entry point to expand influence in Latin America and edge the U.S. aside in a region Washington long considered an American preserve.

The Soviet Union, and later Russia, for decades operated a monitoring facility near Havana, setting a precedent. So, security specialists said, China's listening post, while angering Washington, isn't apt to cross U.S. red lines.

China over the last 20 years has become an economic player in Latin America, increasing trade and investment in agriculture, energy, mining and other sectors. It has become the top trading partner for many countries in the region.

The engagement has given Chinese companies access to copper, oil, soybeans and other resources that Beijing deems critical to grow the Chinese economy and underpin widening influence.

In recent years, the focus has broadened to include materials critical to energy-saving technologies; a Chinese consortium in January won a bid to develop lithium in Bolivia, home to the world's largest resources of the metal, which is a component of batteries for electric vehicles.

"China's engagement in Latin America is about China getting what China needs for its own prosperity," said R. Evan Ellis, a professor at the U.S. Army War College who tracks Beijing's relations in the region.

Xi has said that the U.S. is out to contain China as it rises to become a global peer.

At the conference where Li spoke, he and other Chinese officials warned that the U.S. is attempting to bring the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into Asia to serve as a check on China.

With that in mind, according to Chinese officials and foreign-policy specialists, Xi has placed a priority on preparing the Chinese economy to withstand the kind of sanctions and economic pressure the U.S. and its NATO allies have placed on Russia over events in Ukraine." [1]

1.  World News: China's Spy Station Jostles Washington --- Planned listening post in Cuba comes as Blinken prepares to go to Beijing on June 18. Hutzler, Charles; Vyas, Kejal. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 10 June 2023: A.9.