Few countries in the Western Hemisphere have evoked for Americans the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine as much as has Cuba. For years, the Soviets used the island nation 103 miles off the coast of Florida as a listening post, and, in 1962, they brought the world to the brink of existential conflict by secretly placing nuclear ballistic missiles on the island.
Today, America’s most worrisome unwelcome guest in the Caribbean is China. That’s also true elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Beijing has been using Cuba as a spy base since 2019, the White House said last week. The Biden administration’s statement was aimed at refuting a Wall Street Journal report that China was planning to build a new listening post in Cuba, though, given the history, it’s anything but comforting to know that Beijing has been eavesdropping on the U.S. from close range for the last four years.
