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Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***ChinaRecent events have highlighted the increasingly global nature of U.S.-Chinese competition and China’s growing security presence in Latin America as one facet of that global trend. Last year, the White House acknowledged defense and intelligence cooperation between China and Cuba dating back to 2019. This week, the Wall Street Journal and the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported on expansion and upgrades at four sites in Cuba, each capable of hosting Chinese electronic surveillance operations — including one previously unreported facility at El Salao, not far from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.While Cuba has a long record of hosting foreign intelligence operations aimed at the United States, in particular some key facilities in the southeast, developments in 2023–24 appear to mark an upgrade in China-Cuba security cooperation. Deepening ties were highlighted by an April 2024 meeting between Central Military Commission Vice-Chair Gen. He Weidong and Cuba’s Gen. Victor Rojo Ramos that noted “fruitful results in accordance with the strategic blueprint” for cooperation drawn up by the two countries. In that meeting, He pledged to continue assisting Cuba, including with its military development.Tightening security relations between China and Cuba illustrate several trends in the global geopolitical competition between the United States and China. First is China’s growing security outreach to Latin America and the Caribbean, which has raised concern among policymakers and military officials. Second is a dimension to this competition of intensifying intelligence competition, particularly as a result of China’s increasingly forward-leaning and globally oriented intelligence apparatus.Third is the consolidation or growth of ties among various authoritarian powers around the world, including a new Russian-North Korean security partnership signed during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang,