WASHINGTON – China has reached a secret deal with Cuba to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island roughly 160km from Florida, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said on Thursday, but the White House has cast doubt on the report.

China’s Foreign Ministry also dismissed it as “rumour and slander”, but just the same blamed it on the “hacker empire”, the United States.

Such a spy installation would allow Beijing to gather electronic communications from the south-eastern US, which houses many military bases, as well as monitor ship traffic, the newspaper reported, citing American officials familiar with classified intelligence.

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 WSJ.

But Mr John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters: “We have seen the report. It’s not accurate.” He did not, however, specify what he thought was incorrect.

He said the US has had “real concerns” about China’s relationship with Cuba and was closely monitoring it.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “As we all know, spreading rumours and slander is a common tactic of the United States. The United States is also the most powerful hacker empire in the world, and also veritably a major monitoring nation.”

The Cuban government did not respond to a request for comment. But veteran Cuban diplomat Jose Cabanas, former ambassador to the US, wrote in a tweet that Washington was “trying to demonise Cuba again”.

He did not elaborate.

The agreement between the two US rivals, both ruled by communist governments, has caused alarm in President Joe Biden’s administration, WSJ said, posing a new threat close to America’s shores.

The newspaper said US officials declined to provide more details about the proposed location of the listening station or whether construction had begun.

The reported deal comes as Washington and Beijing are taking tentative steps to soothe tensions that spiked after a suspected Chinese high-altitude spy balloon crossed the US before the American military shot it down off the East Coast in February.

It could also raise questions about a trip to China that US officials say Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning in the coming weeks. Washington’s top diplomat had earlier scrapped the visit over the spy balloon incident.

Ties have deteriorated over disputes ranging from Beijing’s human rights record and technology competition, to military activity in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.

“We have had real concerns about China’s relationship with Cuba, and we have been concerned since day one of the administration about China’s activities in our hemisphere and around the world,” Mr Kirby said.

“We are closely monitoring it and taking steps to counter it. We remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home and in the region.”

‘Direct assault’

US Senator Bob Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Cuba hawk, said that if the report is true, it would be “a direct assault upon the United States”.

“So I hope the administration will think about how they’ll react, if it’s true,” he told reporters.

A former US intelligence official said on condition of anonymity that a Chinese listening post would be a “big deal”, marking an expansion of Beijing’s spying capabilities and giving it access to signals intelligence as far north as Washington.

If such a facility is built, the Chinese will use Cuba “as a beachhead for collection against the United States”, said Mr Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA undercover officer.

The US has a long history of spying on China in its own neighbourhood. It is widely reported to have used Taiwan as a listening post for the mainland and regularly flies spy planes in the South China Sea, angering Beijing.

The head of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau told the island’s Parliament in April that Taiwan was conducting real-time encrypted intelligence sharing with Five Eyes alliance partners, which includes the US.

A cash infusion would likely be welcomed in Cuba, where the economy is sputtering and inflation, fuel shortages, plunging farm production and a cash crunch continue to fan discontent.

Relations between Washington and Havana remain strained.

The Biden administration in 2022 partially rolled back some Trump-era restrictions on remittances and travel to the island, but Cuban officials called the steps insufficient.

The intelligence on the agreement was gathered in recent weeks and was convincing, WSJ reported. The officials said the deal would let China conduct signals intelligence, allowing it to monitor e-mails, phone calls and satellite transmissions.

Cuba, an old Cold War foe of the US, has long been a hotbed of espionage and spy games.

The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 started after Moscow began placing Soviet nuclear weapons on the island. It backed down and removed the missiles, but it is widely regarded as the moment when the US and the Soviet Union came closest to a nuclear confrontation.

The Soviets installed a spy base on the island at Lourdes, just south of Havana, in the mid-1960s, with parabolic antennas aimed at Cuba’s northern neighbour. Russian President Vladimir Putin closed the facility in the early 2000s. REUTERS