Remember that Chinese spy balloon that made news in February as it drifted across the US gathering information for the CCP? We were told at the time not to panic because Joe Biden totally had things under control and the Chinese wouldn’t learn anything. But as we learned a couple months later, the spy balloon was actually a partial success.

China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.

However, the balloon became such a big story and such an embarrassment to China that they probably won’t be trying it again anytime soon. And as it turns out, they may not need to. Instead, they may be building a spy station right off our southern coast.

Cuba has agreed to allow China to build a spying facility on the island that could allow the Chinese to eavesdrop on electronic communications across the southeastern US, two sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN.

The US learned about the plan in the last several weeks, the first source said, and it is unclear whether China has already begun building the surveillance facility.

Cuba is denying the reports but China seemed to be caught a little flat footed on their response:

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday avoided directly answering a question about reports on alleged plans to open a spy base in Cuba, saying it was “not aware” of the situation, while accusing the US of spying itself and of “spreading rumors.”

“The United States should reflect on itself and stop interfering in Cuba’s internal affairs under the banner of freedom, democracy and human rights,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular briefing.

So far there hasn’t been any construction of a new outpost. Maybe this leak is an attempt to prevent it. But you have to wonder if President Biden is really up for a Cuban Missile Crisis scenario where we have to decide whether or not to allow this or to intervene to prevent it from being built.

President Biden has supposedly been working to restore relations with China but Josh Rogin argued earlier this week that China isn’t acting as if it’s interested.

…there are mounting signs that China’s leaders are uninterested in improving U.S.-China relations at the moment — and might see benefits in ramping up tensions.

This dynamic was on full display last weekend at a major international conference in Singapore. In a sophisticated if not convincing speech, China’s defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, attacked the United States (which he repeatedly referred to with the phrase “some country”) as the source of all the world’s ills, while presenting China as a more reasonable alternative regional power…

The fact that Beijing is ramping up its anti-U.S. rhetoric while doubling down on its bad behavior is ominous. Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, told me that Li’s speech was essentially a message that China wants the United States to leave the region, not a sign Beijing wants to work to stabilize the relationship.

“The Chinese have made it pretty clear that they believe the presence of risk will induce caution in U.S. behavior so they won’t talk to us about risk reduction,” she said. “They are going to keep increasing the risk. That may temporarily induce caution, but they are not going to drive the U.S. out of the region.”

China doesn’t want to play nice, it wants to be belligerent and see what it can get away with. I think we’ve been seeing a lot of that recently, in the air and on the seas.

In the second major provocation by China’s military in the span of a week, a Chinese warship carried out what the U.S. military called “an unsafe maritime interaction” when it crossed an American warship’s bow at a distance of 150 yards forcing the U.S. Navy destroyer to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision.

Building a spying station just off our coast seems like another provocation intended to test our response. You almost get the impression they aren’t that worried about the US response, possibly because they don’t have a lot of respect for the current administration.