Chinese Espionage, Cuba, and the Panama Canal by Miguel A. Faria, MD

Chinese espionage against the West, particularly the United States, continues from the Cold War and the “end of history” era into the 21st century, following in many ways the same methods as advised in the 5th century BC manuscript The Art of War by the military strategist Sun Tzu (or Sunzi). This ancient strategist advised that espionage should be conducted by obtaining small and innumerable pieces of information from vast numbers of individuals sent as armies of spies against the enemy. This type of intelligence gathering methodology was described as a “thousand grains of sand” approach by Paul D. Moore, a former China analyst for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Moore illustrated that intelligence collection method in the following way:

“If a beach was an espionage target, the Russians would send in a sub, frogmen would steal ashore in the dark of night and with great secrecy collect several buckets of sand and take them back to Moscow. The U.S. would target the beach with satellites and produce reams of data. The Chinese would send in a thousand tourists, each assigned to collect a single grain of sand. When they returned, they would be asked to shake out their towels. And they would end up knowing more about the sand than anyone else.”

Furthermore, unlike the Soviets, the communist Chinese are not interested in recruiting agents with vulnerabilities or misfits or even people motivated by revenge, but normal people, who are naively convinced of the humanitarian nature of their actions. Theoretically, foreigners recruited by Chinese spymasters genuinely want to assist China and help it improve technologically, to modernize and achieve parity with the West. For example, Espionage writer David Wise asserts that the Chinese might “pitch” foreign contacts with statements such as, “Scientific information should recognize no political boundaries.”

Therefore, students, academicians working abroad, scientists attending conferences, tourists, corporate executives, and especially government employees, could potentially be targeted, since the Chinese often seek to “develop general relationships with people that may have an intelligence dimension.” A case in point was that of Charles Lieber, PhD, a professor of chemistry at Harvard University who was arrested in 2020 by the FBI and charged with conducting espionage for China against the United States. Professor Lieber had been receiving more than $50,000 per month from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for his efforts “as a ‘Strategic Scientist’ at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and as a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan.”

 In 98% of the cases, though, actual recruitment usually translates to ethnic, first-generation Chinese immigrants with cultural and familial ties to China. Sometimes the Chinese government reciprocates by helping those part-time spies create or proceed with commercial business ventures in the United States. This is called guanxi. Most Chinese espionage activities are coordinated by the Ministry of State Security (MSS) or the military intelligence arm of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

China and the Strategic Panama Canal

The Panama Canal was formally ceded to Panama at the end of 1999 as a result of a Torrijos-Carter Treaty negotiated by Democrat President Jimmy Carter and the leftist Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos during 1979. In 1997, even before the Canal was officially in the hands of the Panamanians, with the blessings (and personal lobbying) of Democrat President Bill Clinton, the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), a front company of the PLA, was given a sweetheart deal—a 20-year lease of our decommissioned but still strategic Long Beach Naval Yards. It is no wonder the Panamanians loved Jimmy Carter, and the Chinese loved Bill Clinton. Since that time Chinese presence throughout the world and in the United States has grown exponentially.

The United States built the Panama Canal early in the 20th century with American sweat, toil, and money, only to give it away to a left-wing Panamanian dictator via a dubious treaty. The Panamanians, in turn, ceded the Canal to Hutchison Whampoa, a front Chinese company that was owned by Chinese military intelligence. At about the same time, another Chinese front organization, the Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings, obtained a 50-year lease to operate the two strategic ports at either end of the Panama Canal. Thus, in case of hostilities, U.S. shipping routes would be cut off and bottled up in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, encircled by the Chinese and their allies Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama. To this day, the Chinese deny that they control the Panama Canal, and the American media seem to believe them. President-elect Donald Trump does not.

The mainstream American media, especially the three television broadcast networks—CBS, NBC, and ABC—have been slow to recognize and cover the threat China poses to U.S. economic and strategic interests by forging closer ties with Latin American nations in America’s own backyard. In Central America, for example, the Center for Strategic & International Studies noted, “Chinese companies have positioned themselves at either end of the Panama Canal through port concession agreements,” thereby boosting China’s footprint in the Canal zone. Moreover, of the goods moving through the Canal, “over 60 percent originate in or end up in U.S. markets, intrinsically tying free and fair Canal access to U.S. national security and economic interests in the country.”

Cuba as Base for Espionage Against the United States

China has been using Cuba, another communist nation, as a theater for espionage operations against their main enemy, the United States. Today, in our increasingly perilous world, Cuba could furnish Beijing with a strategic operational base against America during a political or military crisis. More than a decade ago, Toby Westerman, editor and publisher of International News Analysis (INA) wrote:

China’s intelligence operations are the “core arena” for achieving the superpower status that the Communist oligarchy in Beijing so passionately desires. Central to its spy activities is the island of Cuba, which is strategically located for the interception of U.S. military and civilian satellite communications. China’s spy services also cooperate closely with Havana’s own world-class intelligence services. Inexplicably, the U.S. mass media are ignoring both the existence of the spy base as well as the Cuban-Chinese alliance responsible for it.

As far back as the first decade of the 21st century, China began replacing and updating Cuba’s obsolete “non-lethal” technical equipment on the island, but the degree and nature of that technological transfer was difficult to assess. No sanctions were imposed by America for China’s assistance to Cuba at that time. However, sanctions were imposed a few years later in the case of China’s Huawei Technologies. Ties continued to grow between Cuba and Red China in both military aid as well as improving Cuba’s spying capabilities.

In the Caribbean, Beijing has spread its tentacles also in Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and now Cuba with its intelligence gathering operations. Westerman wrote:

The base at Bejucal, however, is still operating. While the Cubans technically run it, some 50-100 Chinese intelligence officers are at Bejucal gathering and interpreting information, according to Simmons. In sharp contrast to Moscow, there is no political cost to China. ”It took us years to find out they [the Chinese Communists] were operating there. We found out through émigrés, defectors, and travelers to Cuba,” Simmons told INA Today. Unlike the Soviets, China has not constructed a facility, and only with the greatest of difficulty can the Chinese be connected with Cuban electronic spy base activities. In this way, China can plausibly deny both the use of the base and the transference of information from its Havana embassy to Beijing.

In addition to Bejucal, China reactived the Lourdes Radio Electronics Center (REC), an old Soviet SIGINT base near Havana, and three other intelligence stations in Cuba in 2019. It is likely that China will share gathered SIGINT information with Russia. According to a Fox News report:

These facilities likely have the capability to monitor cellphone and internet traffic, including financial transactions throughout much of the U.S. Southeast. Modern AI is probably being employed to sift through hundreds of millions of daily communications, looking for information of interest to convert into intelligence. Depending on the availability of electric power, there may even be electronic jamming systems as well.

In my book Cuba’s Eternal Revolution through the Prism of Insurgency, Socialism, and Espionage, I note that Cuban espionage and its foreign intelligence capabilities remain a threat to the US with a very strategic position for conducting human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT) and cyber espionage against the United States, especially when rendering assistance to the Chinese in case of major hostilities. There is no longer any question that China’s control of the Cuban facilities and control of the Panama Canal poses a serious national security threat to the United States. The fact is undeniable.  

This article is excerpted and edited from Dr. Faria’s book, Stalin, Mao, Communism, and the 21st Century Aftermath in Russia and China (2024).

Dr. Miguel A. Faria is Associate Editor in Chief in neuropsychiatry; and socioeconomics, politics, and world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He is the author of numerous books, the most recent, Cuba’s Eternal Revolution through the Prism of Insurgency, Socialism, and Espionage (July 2023); Stalin, Mao, Communism, and the 21st Century Aftermath in Russia and China (2024); and Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions (2025)— the last four books by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

This article may be cited as: Faria MA. Chinese Espionage, Cuba, and the Panama Canal. HaciendaPublishing.com, January 16, 2025. Available from: https://haciendapublishing.com/chinese-espionage-cuba-and-the-panama-canal-by-miguel-a-faria-md/.

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