By Greg Torode
HONG KONG, June 14 (Reuters) - Amid reports that China is expanding its electronic eavesdropping capabilities in Cuba - which Beijing has denied - China's evolving military surveillance network has some way to go to match the sweep and reach of the U.S. and its allies, defence and intelligence analysts say.
WHAT IS A FOREIGN LISTENING POST?
Five defence and intelligence analysts and four diplomats say large-scale military operations, even in peacetime, demand extensive attempts to vacuum up communications and electronic emissions, all part of what is known as signals intelligence (SIGINT).
The targets could be, for example, conversations between military commanders, a ballistic missile communicating with its command centre or microwave exchanges between a satellite and its ground station. All generate information that can be used against adversaries in a conflict.
Even if the communications can't be decoded, tracking the volume and timing of signals can provide vital intelligence, retired military officials say. Radars and jamming equipment also produce electronic signatures that can be captured.
Fibre optic cables and mobile phone networks have complicated SIGINT efforts, but militaries still routinely communicate via radio.
Large militaries operate ships, surveillance aircraft, satellites and sometimes submarines capable of gathering such signals, but land-based stations expand a nation's scope and reach.
The United States and its allies operate a vast global military surveillance network, centred around the listening posts of the Five Eyes grouping of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and the long-standing U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific, including sites in Taiwan, Guam and Diego Garcia, a British territory.
WHY PUT ONE IN CUBA?
The Cuba station is important to the People's Liberation Army for several reasons. It puts the East Coast of the U.S. within range, including military and civilian space launches in Florida and several large army and naval bases.
Cuba's proximity to the equator could make it easier to monitor geostationary military satellites, said one retired military official familiar with such operations.
It could also help China watch the development of SpaceX's Starlink satellite network - a communications tool that Ukrainian forces have used extensively in their conflict with Russia, which Moscow calls a "special operation".
Carl Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy of the Australian National University, said that although PLA surveillance had a long way to go in catching up with the reach of the U.S. and its allies, the Cuba station marked a fresh front in the SIGINT rivalry.