During Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) questioned experts about the trend of surveillance in Cuba by China.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Lazarus. Members will be recognized by order of seniority for their five minutes of
00:05questioning, and I'll recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. I'll start out with a
00:08comment in that the United States, for far too long, both Republican and Democrat administrations
00:16have not paid close enough attention to what's happening in our own hemisphere, and it's allowed
00:21China to make the inroads that it has, and now we're just waking up to the fact. And so this
00:27hearing is part of that, to try to awaken the American people and the administration to the
00:33fact that we need to pay close attention to what's happening in our own neighborhood.
00:40And so with that, this is an open question. It's my estimation that the Cuban regime itself is
00:47actually one of the most weakest positions that it has been in the past 60 years. Do any of you
00:53share that opinion, or do you disagree with that opinion? I'll start with you, Mr. Dr. Berg.
01:00Thanks for the question, Chairman. I do share that opinion. I think the Cuban regime is incredibly weak
01:04at this point in time, and we've seen that not just in protests from the island, but in rolling
01:10blackouts that occur seemingly on a monthly basis, sometimes weekly basis. Mr. Chairman.
01:15Mr. Fernandez. Mr. Fernandez. Yes, I agree. I think economically, politically as well, the Cuban regime
01:24is in a period of vulnerability. I think also increasingly hemispheric, as well as U.S. political
01:34consensus is moving towards a recognition of the malign nature of the Cuban dictatorship. As past attempts,
01:42however, poorly conceived at engagement, as we have seen from the U.S., have fallen flatly and been
01:52rebuffed. And the Cuban dictatorship has at the same time, again, as we discussed, acted as an active
02:01partner for enemies of the United States within our hemisphere. Mr. Lazarus, do you share that opinion
02:06that the Cuban regime is at one of the weakest points in the last 60 years? Sir, I'd absolutely agree.
02:10Inflation is over 30 percent for the Cuban regime. There's been an increased outflow of
02:19refugees coming out of Cuba. And there's been an increase in Cuban officials traveling to Beijing,
02:25trying to get more investment. I understand that now China is Cuba's either largest or second largest
02:31trading partner, accounting for roughly 30 percent of Cuba's imports and exports. So I think that
02:36Cuba's decreasing economic situation is allowing it to become even more and more dependent economically,
02:43increasingly security and political standpoint on China. I'd like to discuss you off with the three
02:49of you offline and how we can accelerate Cuba's dictatorship, their demise, so we can turn Cuba from
02:54a platform and a base for China and make it actually a friend of the United States. And I think we're close to
03:01that. I also think that Cuba is the head of the snake. When we talk about all the unrest that's
03:06happening in our hemisphere in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba's the head of the snake. And we need to do
03:11everything in our power to set the Cuban people free, but also turn Cuba from an enemy into a friend.
03:17Now let's talk about Cuba and the threat and the Chinese threat in Cuba. The Russians have been operating
03:24there for years, decades. Are the Chinese supplanting the Russians or are they adding to the Russian threat?
03:33I'm happy to take that, Mr. Chairman. I think that they are both supplanting but also adding to. There's
03:38still a residual Russian presence, of course, in Cuba. We saw last year at the tail end of the Biden
03:45administration how the Russians sailed a vessel through the Florida Strait, ported both in Cuba and
03:51in Havana. Importantly, before porting in Cuba, displayed one of its Zircon hypersonic missiles
03:57in the Atlantic. But I would say in terms of the presence, Mr. Chairman, the Chinese have supplanted
04:01them in terms of the more important partner. And quite literally, some of these sites that we've
04:05showed were former Russian sites that are now occupied, we believe, by the Chinese. And they've
04:10added to the capabilities of the more modern infrastructure, etc. That's correct. Okay. And so,
04:16you know, maybe some of my colleagues would be, you know, surprised to know that not only is it Russia
04:20and China, but also Iran is here, and North Korea is also here. And so we need to also stand up to
04:27those threats. The training range that's just outside of Florida, it's the largest training range
04:34that we have. It's only the only training range that actually can simulate battle in the Taiwan
04:40Straits. What kind of a threat do these facilities pose to those ranges? And what kind of intelligence
04:49could the Chinese get from surveying those those ranges in relation to our tactics, etc.,
04:56of how we may operate in the Taiwan Straits? Mr. Chairman, the first slide that I showed in my
05:03my presentation showed just the number of facilities in your home state that are within easily within
05:08range of these facilities. To my understanding that military communications is, of course, encrypted and
05:13protected in certain ways. But if it's scooped up by some of this equipment, then it is available for
05:19the Chinese to try to crack that that communication. And so that's why one of my recommendations is
05:25doing an exercise to harden facilities and figure out what our vulnerabilities are,
05:29so that we can make sure that we we protect those those very vulnerable secrets, both on the commercial
05:34side and on the military side, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. My five minutes are up and I recognize