OPINION:
President Biden has made it clear that he seeks competition, not conflict, with China, but President Xi Jinping has other plans. China seeks to replace the U.S. as the world’s superpower, create a new international world order in its totalitarian image, and Communist Cuba has been an ally in that effort.
The failure of the U.S. to side consistently with pro-democracy movements in both countries led to lost opportunities and instead empowered two regimes hostile to America while the current administration is repeating the same errors.
There has been a substantial Chinese military presence in Cuba for the past 24 years, and this relationship is not limited to espionage.
The Biden administration’s initial response to an article in The Wall Street Journal that “China was preparing to build a spy station in Cuba” was one of denial, but the existence of Chinese bases spying on the United States forced the White House to walk that back.
Manuel Cereijo, a professor of electronic engineering at Florida International University, reported in a 1999 study: “Chinese personnel have allegedly been working out of the Bejucal listening post since March 1999. In 1995, [Russia] began helping Cuba build the base south of Havana. It is allegedly capable of both eavesdropping and ’cyber-warfare.’ Chinese workers are reportedly helping Cuba modernize a satellite-tracking center.”
In 2002, in El Nuevo Herald, Mr. Cereijo reported that “Chinese personnel, in collaboration with Cubans on Project Titan, have also built two antenna bases, one in Wajay, Havana, and the other in Santiago de Cuba, known as the antenna farm.”
Although the communist regimes in China and Cuba were established 10 years apart (Mao Zedong in 1949 and the Castro brothers in 1959), the dictatorships have much in common: They see the U.S. as an enemy, and they also see democracy and human rights as hostile to their interests, and anti-Americanism remains a core tenet of their ideology.
On Sept. 28, 1960, the Cuban regime diplomatically recognized China. This was at a time when Havana maintained normal diplomatic relations with the United States and had not declared its communist nature, and no sanctions had been imposed.
In November 1960, Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a Cuban delegation to China, where he met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other high-ranking Chinese officials to discuss conditions in Cuba and Latin America, as well as the prospects for spreading communism across the Western Hemisphere. Between 1960 and 1964, Beijing and Havana worked closely together. When the Castro regime sided with the Soviet Union in the Sino-Soviet split in 1964, these connections cooled.
Under Castroism, Havana’s ties with foreign countries were frequently defined by their antipathy toward and threat to the United States. From 1959 through 1991, the Soviet Union was regarded as an existential danger to the United States, and Havana maintained close ties with Moscow. Relations with Havana cooled as Mikhail Gorbachev began to push human rights and market reforms in the Soviet Union in 1985.
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro openly supported Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and his government was one of the few in the world to do so. This backing resulted in Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s high-level visit to Cuba in 1993, followed by Raul Castro’s first visit to China in 1997. These travels were publicly utilized to sign new trade and investment deals, but they were also used to push more strategic and ideological objectives.
After negotiations between Raul Castro and Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian, as well as Gen. Dong Liang Ju, an agreement was reached between Beijing and Havana in 1999 under which Chinese military personnel would use the Bejucal base and others alongside Cuban military personnel to spy on the U.S.
The Washington Times reported on June 12, 2001, that “at least three arms shipments were traced from China to the Cuban port of Mariel over the past several months.” U.S. intelligence authorities were sourced saying, “all of the weapons were aboard vessels owned by the state-run China Ocean Shipping Co. (Cosco).” Military-grade dual-use explosives and detonation cords were among the goods.
According to the story, the latest of these three shipments arrived in December 2000, coinciding with a visit to Cuba that month of Beijing’s military chief of staff, Fu Quanyou. The Chinese general “signed a military cooperation agreement with Havana aimed at modernizing Cuba’s outdated Russian weapons,” The Times said.
Colombia intercepted a Chinese ship smuggling weapons intended for Cuba in 2015.
Official visits continued with Fidel Castro’s trip to China in 2003 and Raul Castro’s in 2012, while Mr. Xi made his first visit to Cuba in 2014. These high-level visits have continued to this day and do not bode well for U.S. interests.
Despite this, the Biden administration has maintained that Washington is “determined to avoid” a cold war with Beijing. The incident involving China’s spy station in Cuba is only the latest evidence that Cold War 2.0 has already begun.
The administration should stop denying it. Instead, it should accept that Beijing and Washington’s relationship is what it is and ensure that the U.S. wins the new Cold War.
• John Suarez is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba and a human rights activist. Jianli Yang is founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China and the author of “It’s Time for a Values-Based ’Economic NATO.’”
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