China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for Beijing to finance the construction of an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, which would represent the latest geopolitical challenge and threat to the United States, the Wall Street Journal has learned. For such a base, the Chinese were reportedly willing to pay impoverished Cuba billions of dollars.

In its exclusive story published today, the newspaper refers to officials familiar with top secret intelligence.

By having a wiretapping facility just 160 miles from Florida, China's intelligence services could interfere with signals, known in the spy world as "signal interference," including monitoring electronic communications such as email, phone calls and satellite transmissions. , the newspaper writes.

- I will not comment on this report, but we are aware of it and have spoken many times before about 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. of the National Security Council.

He said the US is closely monitoring this and taking steps to counter it, and is confident it can meet all security commitments.

The leaked intelligence about the planned location of this facility, for which the Chinese were reportedly willing to pay impoverished Cuba billions of dollars, was described by some US officials as compelling.

The United States has repeatedly intervened to prevent foreign powers from spreading influence in the Western Hemisphere. The most prominent case is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The United States and the then-Soviet Union nearly went to nuclear war after the Soviets deployed missiles capable of carrying atomic bombs to Cuba, prompting the U.S. Navy to quarantine the island.