(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Military communications, tech industry secrets,
and maritime transmissions,
these are some of the communications that experts say,
"May be intercepted by a new intelligence gathering
and military training facility in Cuba,
built in partnership with China."
Experts say, "China is trying to replicate
the US's global surveillance capabilities,
and Cuba could play a crucial role in that plan."
- The US has always had the advantage
because we've had the geography,
and that's why Cuba would be an important asset for China.
- [Narrator] So how does Cuba fit
into China's global eavesdropping strategy?
And what do China's other spy base tell us
about how this one could look?
Both the US and China already operate
a number of listening posts around the world
as part of their signals intelligence or SIGINT Programs.
That's the process of eavesdropping
on the voice conversations,
text messages, emails, location signals,
and data transmissions that fly around the world constantly.
In June, US officials said,
"China had reached an agreement
worth several billion dollars with Cuba,
the deal would allow the island nation
to build a new military facility
capable of electronic eavesdropping
100 miles from the Florida Keys."
Beijing and Havana have both denied the planned facility,
but US officials say, "China and Cuba already jointly run
for eavesdropping stations on the island.
And experts say, "This is just the latest chapter
in a long history of Cuba's eavesdropping capabilities."
- Russia used Cuba for decades
because it was the one place
that they could build a listening post
and collect a lot of the data from the United States.
- [Narrator] James Bamford has written five books
on national security and intelligence agencies
and previously worked for PBS and ABC.
He says that, "A Chinese listening post on Cuba
would have a very clear mission."
- One of the key things you wanna do
is eavesdrop on satellites
because so much information is transmitted up to
and then downlinked from satellites.
- [Narrator] These satellites convey
much of the world's military, diplomatic,
and commercial information.
They orbit about 22,000 miles above the Earth
at a fixed point over the equator,
mostly above the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.
Bamford says, "China has only been able to
tap into satellites over the Indian and Pacific Oceans,
from facilities in the Spratly Islands
and the Great Coco Island."
But listening into communications
over the Atlantic Ocean is where Cuba comes in.
- I mean, the way the Chinese would do it,
basically you need a very large area,
and you're building satellite dishes,
they could be 90 feet across,
and then you, a lot of times will put it in the radome,
which looks like a big golf ball covering,
both protecting it from the weather
and hiding the location of where you're targeting.
- [Narrator] These facilities can range
from a single satellite dish to over a dozen.
Having more dishes allows the station
to target multiple satellites at once.
Bamford says, "One US listening post in Japan
can target 8,000 signals from 16 satellites."
- That's a huge amount of data
and you need a large number of satellites to do that.
And then once you've collected that,
you've also gotta demodulate it,
you gotta, in other words, turn it from satellite data
into data that can be understandable.
- [Narrator] This large amount of data is then filtered
to focus on specific types of communications.
Bamford says, "That unlike the US,
which mainly targets military and diplomatic communications,
China is primarily focused on commercial eavesdropping."
- They really are interested in technology
and there are enormous amounts
of technological communications
going back and forth to Silicon Valley and so forth.
- [Narrator] But satellite dishes
aren't the only type of sensor
that China has established
in its other spy stations around the world.
This satellite imagery shows
a type of direction-finding apparatus
called an Elephant Cage or Wullenweber.
- They're huge antennas,
it could be a quarter mile across,
and they've got 360 elements, poles basically,
wires on 'em in a circle.
And the whole idea is
when they're trying to listen for a signal,
that signal will hit one of those elements,
one of those wires,
a millisecond before it hits another one.
And that way, they could tell what direction it is.
- [Narrator] This information is particularly useful
for tracking maritime activity,
with Cuba strategically located
to pick up signals along the US East Coast.
- So if they're trying to listen
for an American submarine in that area,
and the submarine comes up
and it sends a burst communication,
it'll be able to collect that information
and find out the direction,
and then they'll triangulate it
by having listing posts in other places
that have a similar type of antenna.
And then you can triangulate it,
and find out exactly where that submarine is.
- [Narrator] As tensions between China and the US grow,
intelligence gathering will continue to play a key role
in the diplomatic, military, and commercial rivalry
between the two nations.
And while experts say, "Cuba's spy bases
significantly improved China's eavesdropping capabilities,"
US officials say, "They are confident
in their ability to meet their security commitments
in the US and abroad."
(gentle music)