Abstract
Sino-Cuban relations have deepened rapidly since the beginning of the twenty-first century, propelled by both political ideology and economic interests. A shared commitment to socialism with “local characteristics” has enabled the pursuit of an unusually broad range of cooperative initiatives. These include Chinese investment in the Cuban nickel and oil sectors, educational and medical exchange programs, the development of tourism, and engagement with the Chinese diaspora on the island. Data from Chinese sources on these spheres of engagement reflect an attempt to address contemporary needs with a blend of state and market forces. The intensification of Sino-Cuban relations over the past decade poses no challenge to the United States; on the contrary, it opens new opportunities for trilateral cooperation.
Las relaciones sino-cubanos se han profundizado rápidamente desde comienzos del siglo XXI, impulsadas tanto por ideología política como por intereses económicos. Un compromiso compartido al socialismo con “características locales” ha permitido la consecución de una gama inusualmente amplia de iniciativas cooperativas. Éstas incluyen la inversión china en sectores cubanos de níquel y petróleo, programas de intercambio educacionales y médicos, el fomento de turismo, y la interacción con la diáspora china en la isla. Datos de fuentes chinas sobre estos ámbitos de interacción reflejan un intento de abordar necesidades contemporáneas con una mezcla de fuerzas estatales y del mercado. La profundización de relaciones sino-cubanas en recientes décadas no presenta ningún desafío a los Estados Unidos; al contrario, abre nuevas oportunidades de cooperación trilateral.
China and Cuba often make global headlines for the efforts of their leaders to integrate communist governance with market-oriented economic policies. As part of a small community of nations governed by communist parties (including North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos), China and Cuba have cooperated closely on the basis of shared values and perceptions of domestic and international affairs. Although some commentators point out that China’s economy has become increasingly capitalist (e.g., Coase and Wang, 2012; Woetzel, 2003), the state continues to guide and oversee domestic and international affairs according to socialist principles. Nowhere is this more evident than in Sino-Cuban relations, which reflect strong ongoing ideological affinities through intergovernmental accords and diplomatic support. The two nations therefore view their cooperation as socialist in character even as they pursue integration into international markets.
This article examines Sino-Cuban relations in the first decade of the twenty-first century, a period in which bilateral ties have deepened significantly, though in ways that are not always well understood outside the two countries. When Raúl Castro formally took office in 2008 as Cuba’s head of state, he quickly demonstrated a pragmatic approach to economic restructuring. He has since taken steps to “update” Cuba’s economic model by accommodating certain features of the market economy in order to encourage the efficient management of enterprises, revitalize productive sectors, and stimulate limited private initiative. This approach has generated opportunities for deeper political and economic cooperation with China.
Although nickel is China’s main import from Cuba, the bilateral trade profile differs from that of other countries. China has taken concrete steps to provide Cuba with new technology so that it can develop its own industries rather than simply importing Chinese manufactured goods and simultaneously avoid becoming dependent on resource exports. Avoiding the “resource curse” is a common topic of discussion between Cuban and Chinese officials and researchers, who have developed programs for industrial diversification through light manufacturing, pharmaceutical production, tourism, and educational exchange.
The article begins with a discussion of the political ideology framing Sino-Cuban interactions, noting that although both governments have adapted the concept of socialism to their individual agendas, ideology continues to provide an important basis for cooperation. The next two sections discuss Chinese trade and investment in the Cuban oil, transport, and manufacturing sectors and cooperation in education, science, and tourism, which together have provided a road map for future engagement. The final section examines the role of the Chinese diaspora in Cuba in facilitating bilateral interactions, and the conclusion considers the future of Sino-Cuban cooperation in light of the two countries’ relations with the United States.
The Politics of Comradeship
China and Cuba are socialist countries whose political and ideological values have long served as a basis for diplomatic understanding. On September 2, 1960, Premier Fidel Castro declared that Cuba would sever ties with Taiwan; this was done on September 28, making Cuba the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. In the first half of the 1960s, China gave political support to Cuba to resist a U.S. invasion and provided economic and military aid (CMFA, 1987: 365–366). In return, Cuba supported China’s bid to restore its status in the United Nations and assisted with bilateral trade and exchange of technology and science.
After the Soviet collapse, cooperation and exchange developed rapidly, and by the second half of the 1990s Sino-Cuban relations had entered a “period of completely new and steady development” (People’s Daily, April 10, 1996). The reinvigoration of relations with China has been a defining feature of Cuban development in the first decade of the twenty-first century. While both nations have sought to accommodate a greater degree of private initiative and consumption within existing structures of state authority, China’s pursuit of a “socialist market economy” has enabled it to advance farther than Cuba in this respect. Economic reform has enabled Chinese individuals to accumulate resources and invest in private businesses to a greater extent than Cubans, providing useful insights for Cuban leaders and thinkers conveyed by their Chinese counterparts through bilateral forums, joint development projects, diplomatic visits, and publications like the Cuban journal Temas (e.g., Shi, 2011; Yan, 2011). Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Cuba in 2001 to sign agreements on trade, technological cooperation, and educational exchange, and Cuban President Fidel Castro reciprocated with a visit to China in 2003 to meet China’s incoming president, (then) General Secretary Hu Jintao. Both leaders affirmed socialist governance as the linchpin of a long-term political alliance (People’s Daily, February 27 and 28, 2003).
Castro’s diplomatic foresight quickly yielded results for Cuba, among them a 2004 summit in Havana in which President Hu and his ministers signed agreements on China’s purchase of Cuban nickel, a mineral exploration project, and the extension of loan repayments (XN, 2004). Hu’s statement “We are fraternal brothers . . . passing the test of changing and adverse international circumstances” was interpreted by some observers as an indication of China’s willingness to throw Cuba a lifeline in the face of U.S. attempts to isolate the Castro government (Lam, 2004: 3; Murray, 2004). Political goodwill has continued to frame China’s relations with Cuba under Raúl Castro, who assumed Cuba’s presidency in 2008 and the same year hosted Hu in Havana and accepted China’s US$8 million donation of humanitarian cargo for hurricane victims. In another apparent reference to the United States, Hu stated that “the Chinese people will, as always, support the just struggle of the Cuban people in safeguarding state sovereignty and opposing outside interference” (XN, 2008a).
The Chinese and Cuban governments’ shared political perspective has materialized in bilateral projects advanced through state channels, though with an increasing attempt to harness market forces. From electronics manufacturing to credits and loans for Cuba’s emerging private restaurants, household ware retailers, and other small business, the success of Sino-Cuban projects has increasingly come to depend on paying customers. Nevertheless, a strictly market-oriented framework would have trouble accommodating the broad aims of Chinese projects in Cuba such as investment in language and culture awareness and the gradual strengthening of professional and social ties through training courses and people-to-people exchange. Furthermore, an emphasis on technology transfer has helped Cuba to overcome intellectual-property barriers and limited access to international technical expertise.
The Cuban Communist Party Congress of April 2011 ratified a series of wide-ranging market-oriented reforms called the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the Party and the Revolution, creating new opportunities for cooperation with China. The Chinese government responded swiftly, sending (then) Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping to Havana in June to establish the first five-year plan for Sino-Cuban cooperation and a series of memoranda of understanding outlining Chinese investments in the Cuban oil and gas sectors. Two months later, the Cuban Political Bureau member José Ramón Balaguer visited Beijing to present the Guidelines to the Chinese government (Cuba Encuentro, 2011). These exchanges have affirmed and validated a bilateral framework that both invokes socialism and seeks compatibility with contemporary global conditions.
Economic and Trade Ties
When Cuba established diplomatic relations with China in 1960, the two countries initiated a system of barter trade that determined the exchange of goods and services through annual quotas. The first five-year trade and payment agreement was signed that year and subsequently renewed every five years. For three decades bilateral trade remained relatively stable, and by 1990 Cuba was China’s second-largest Latin American trading partner. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resulting abandonment of subsidized Soviet oil shipments to Cuba severely impacted the latter’s capacity to export sugar and other products, rendering the system of barter with China untenable. Consequently, on January 1, 1996, Cuba and China implemented a new trade framework underwritten by hard currency.
The Cuban government showed flexibility in its response to the crisis of the 1990s, opening a number of sectors to foreign investment and joint ventures while remaining committed to the fundamental structures of a socialist economy. This process led to a series of Chinese investment projects on the island and enabled Sino-Cuban trade to return to precrisis levels. Trade is complementary, with China importing raw sugar and nickel from Cuba and exporting machinery, dry beans, transport equipment, and light industrial products in return. Bilateral commerce, driven also by medical and educational exchange, peaked in 2007 at US$2.3 billion, As the global financial crisis took hold in 2009, Cuba’s access to foreign credit and earnings from tourism, remittances, and exports (particularly nickel) diminished, prompting a decline of trade with China to US$1.5 billion (Mesa-Lago and Vidal-Alejandro, 2010: 690–691). However, bilateral trade recovered somewhat, to US$1.9 billion, in 2011 (Table 1).
China’s Trade (US$ millions) with Cuba, 2000–2013
Source: Data released by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (http://www.mofcom.gov.cn), the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2009–2013), and the CEIC Asian Economic Database (http://ceicdata.securities.com/cdmWeb).
Investments between the two countries achieved new heights in 2006. That year Cuba invested in eight projects in China, including hotels, tourism, and biomedical production in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhuhai, and Shenzhen, with contracts amounting to US$41.16 million to be incrementally rolled out. Cuba’s completed investments in China nevertheless remain modest, amounting to only US$7.27 million by 2011 (CSP, 2012), with biomedicine taking priority in step with growing international recognition of Cuba’s innovations in the prevention and treatment of cancer and blood diseases. Future Sino-Cuban joint investments in this sector will likely be directed toward the manufacture of pharmaceuticals in Cuba to meet demand at home and across Latin America.
In 2006 the Chinese Ministry of Commerce approved US$56.78 million of direct investment in Cuban agriculture, tourism, telecommunications, and light industry. Several technology transfer projects were established in Cuba, including an electric appliance factory, a bicycle factory, a sheep ranch, a marsh gas extraction plant, and a facility for harvesting reservoir fish. By the end of 2010 China’s direct investments in Cuba amounted to only US$69 million (MC, 2011), but the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has since indicated its intention to take an equity stake in a US$3 billion oil and gas refinery. In addition to direct investments, China has also provided Cuba with medical equipment, educational materials, and commercial loans to purchase consumer durables, sugar processing equipment, and food. During President Hu’s 2008 visit, the two countries signed accords postponing for 10 years repayments of an unspecified trade debt Cuba had accumulated up until 1995 and for 5 years a US$7.2 million line of credit granted by China in 1998. On behalf of the Chinese government, President Hu also donated US$80 million toward Cuba’s hospital modernization program. The growth of bilateral trade since 2000 has seen China become Cuba’s second-largest trading partner (Table 2). As the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU, 2008: 16) reports, “China has emerged as an important strategic ally [of Cuba] in recent years, with extensive economic and military cooperation, including substantial credit guarantees that have had a strong impact on the cost and availability of external financing.”
Cuba’s Main Trading Partners (% of total), 2002–2013
Sources: EIU (2009: 18, 27; 2010:16; 2011: 29; 2012: 17; 2013: 9).
Figures given only for top four countries.
China’s pursuit of market diversification in conjunction with its “go global” strategy has prompted a number of Chinese enterprises to establish representative offices in Cuba. Some of these offices focus on the export of Cuban primary products such as nickel and sugar, though they are increasingly incorporating medical and biological products into their portfolios. Others oversee the import of Chinese products into Cuba and the integration of investments into economic development projects. Chinese investment in Cuban oil prospecting and production is an important recent development, as alternative energy sources such as coal and hydroelectricity harbor little potential on the island. In 1985, several years before the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Cuba’s total oil output was 6.3 million barrels, accounting for less than 10 percent of domestic demand. The rest was provided mainly by the Soviet Union at a heavily subsidized price. The termination of Soviet oil supplies after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991 forced Cuba to start paying world prices, which seriously hampered economic growth and drained foreign purchasing capacity. In 2004 fuel imports cost Cuba US$1.31 billion, a significant figure considering that at the time Cuba’s GDP amounted to US$32 billion (EIU, 2008: 48–50).
Since the early 1990s Cuba has gradually opened petroleum exploration to foreign investors, and the industry has consequently developed rapidly. Oil and natural gas fields have been discovered in the 112,000-square-kilometer maritime area under Cuban jurisdiction in the Gulf of Mexico, and foreign capital and technology have been introduced through joint venture contracts. In March 2004 the Chinese enterprise Sinopec signed an agreement with the National Petroleum Company of Cuba (CUPET) for onshore drilling, and in January 2005 the Shengli Oilfield Administration Office (a division of Sinopec) signed a “product-sharing contract for prospecting in and exploiting three blocks.”
The rapid development of the Chinese economy has dramatically increased its demand for oil, leading the Chinese government to implement strategies to secure multiple supply sources. As Cuba would benefit from Chinese demand for oil, there is enormous room for bilateral cooperation in this sector if Cuba’s reserves can be extracted. On November 25, 2008, officials from CNPC and CUPET met in Havana to sign a framework agreement for offshore oil sector cooperation. Ensuing projects have involved oil and gas field exploration, provision of engineering and technical services, and the export of Chinese industrial equipment. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico reserves consist of some 9 billion barrels of crude oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Cuban sources estimate that the Exclusive Economic Zone holds more than 20 billion barrels and that the exploitation of these reserves would place Cuba within the top 20 oil-producing nations (BBC, 2008).
Since the arrival of the Chinese-built Scarabeo-9 Ultra-Deepwater Rig at the end of 2011, Cuba’s oil ambitions have met with repeated frustration. Repsol (Spain), PC Gulf (Malaysia and Russia), and PDVSA (Venezuela) have each drilled unsuccessfully in Cuba’s Exclusive Economic Zone since April 2012, pointing to the compactness of the underlying rock as making the area unsuitable for oil and gas extraction. Despite media commentary that the prospect of successful drilling is remote, CNPC is positioning itself to take full advantage should Cuba strike oil. To augment the island’s refining capacity, the CNPC subsidiary Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corporation has entered a joint venture with the Cuban-Venezuelan enterprise Cuvenpetrol and an Italian subsidiary of the French oil engineering company Technip to upgrade a refinery in Cienfuegos. The renovated facility will increase production capacity from 65,000 to 150,000 barrels per day. Huanqiu plans to take an equity stake in the US$6 billion project, which also involves building a gasification plant to process Venezuelan—and potentially Cuban—liquid natural gas.
China’s demand for oil is increasing, and so is its demand for nickel. Cuba is endowed with major deposits of high-grade nickel and is an important world supplier, creating another important nexus for mutually beneficial development. The two countries have reached an agreement on strategic cooperation in this field, and further measures to facilitate the export of Cuban nickel ore to China are under exploration. In 2011 China consumed US$556 million worth of Cuban nickel (UN Comtrade, 2012).
The impact of Sino-Cuban trade is evident in the daily lives of Cubans. Shops and stores throughout the island sell affordable Chinese electric fans, televisions, stoves, and refrigerators, and almost every Cuban family owns at least one Chinese-brand appliance. Initially motivated by the Cuban government’s “Energy Revolution” and in line with global moves toward energy efficiency, many people have replaced their inefficient refrigerators with energy-saving units from the Chinese manufacturer Haier. By 2010, 1,572 fuel-efficient cars from the Chinese manufacturer Geely had been shipped to Cuba, and more than 1,000 buses from the Chinese company Yutong had replaced the aging “camel buses” that had been refitted from earlier use as trucks and trailers. Demonstrating the impact of this project, many Cubans now use the word “Yutong” interchangeably with “public bus” (XN, 2008b). A visit by Raúl Castro to incoming President Xi Jinping in July 2012 secured agreements on Chinese provision of digital television and telecommunications technology, financial and banking services, tourism, infrastructure, and equipment for the health sector. It also consolidated cooperation in agriculture for the sourcing of Chinese fertilizers, tractors, and irrigation equipment.
Cooperation in Education, Science, and Industry
While trade is crucial to Sino-Cuban relations, exchanges and cooperation in the fields of social research, education, performing arts, science, sports, and tourism have expanded dramatically. Educational exchange between China and Cuba dates back to the early 1960s, when 150 Chinese students were sent to Cuba to study Spanish. In November 2004 the two sides awarded scholarships to support the exchange of 30 Cuban students for 20 Chinese students per year. During his 2008 visit to Cuba President Hu confirmed China’s intention to augment the number of Chinese students to 5,000 by the end of 2011 with the aim of building a human platform for long-term bilateral cooperation. By mid-2012, some 10,000 Chinese students had completed a course of academic study in Cuba. The Cuban and Chinese governments have coordinated their cooperation in education and training to target issues of mutual priority. In 2007 the China Scholarships Council funded 12,000 young Chinese to study overseas; 400 of these went to Cuba to study medicine and tourism, and in 2008 the number doubled.
For its part, in 2002 Cuba established a Center for Chinese Language Training at the University of Havana. This has been reinforced by the establishment of a Confucius Institute in the heart of Havana’s Chinatown, which was presented to a Chinese delegation in conjunction with President Hu’s November 2008 visit. Both governments believe that language training is an important component of broader technological and industrial cooperation, and technicians are usually enrolled in courses to become more familiar with each other’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Language training has therefore been increasingly coordinated with more technical spheres of collaboration, such as scientific and engineering programs. To promote this agenda of multidisciplinary training, the first joint committee on scientific and technological cooperation was established in 1990. In 2003 an agreement on cooperation in health, information, and agriculture was signed, and a working group on biotechnological cooperation was established in May 2005, resulting in a five-year plan. All of the above forums and meetings have promoted cultural understanding as a key component of successful technical cooperation.
Cuba has the most developed biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors in Latin America, largely because the Cuban government has invested heavily in health programs, with considerable frontline medical staffing and research output. The weakness of the sector is its manufacturing capacity, and for this reason Chinese assistance has been important in converting Cuba’s research results into finished products. A combination of Cuban technology and expertise with Chinese financial and logistical support has resulted in bio-pharmaceutical factories in Beijing (producing anticancer drugs), Changchun (producing interferon), and Xinjiang and Shandong (producing drugs for blood diseases). Jointly produced, owned, and commercialized pharmaceuticals are now being sold at affordable prices in both countries. A Cuban-Chinese anticancer vaccine, Cimavax, was approved for European and Asian clinical trials in early 2012, marking a key prospective return on this joint investment.
Another important area of cooperation is tourism, a sector that has become a prominent driver of Cuban economic growth. In April 2007 a Cuban tourism office dedicated to China was established, and in July a memorandum of understanding was signed allowing Chinese tour groups to visit Cuba. The two governments have worked together to build the tourism market and establish facilities through joint ventures. For instance, China Suntime International holds a 49 percent stake in a US$150-million tourism development project on Havana’s Marina Hemingway.
The commercial ventures pursued by Cuba and China are often integrated with attempts to maximize technology transfer, with the aim of progressing from initial sales of Chinese products to their eventual manufacture in Cuba. For example, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China shipped 500,000 bicycles to Cuba. To meet local demand, a bicycle factory and an electric fan factory were subsequently established in Cuba with Chinese capital and technical expertise. The success of the initiative led to export-to-production schemes for products such as electrical appliances, textiles, and heavy machinery.
Technology transfer has also guided cooperation in the transport sector. In 2006 the Chinese firm Sinosure provided a US$1.8-billion revolving credit line to upgrade Cuban transport infrastructure. The same year the Cuban government announced that contracts totaling more than US$2 billion had been signed to improve Cuban road and rail transport. Rather than deliver complete buses to Cuba, Yutong ships components from its factory in Zhengzhou for assembly in Havana, saving 12 to 15 percent in transportation costs (Pérez, 2009). This scheme has facilitated skills transfer through the training of Cuban technicians by a team of 30 resident Chinese specialists. As with training in electronics manufacturing, this kind of human capital development will provide a valuable source of specialized talent as Cuba is integrated into the world economy. The diversity of these projects and their integration with local industry distinguish Chinese investments in Cuba from those of Spanish and other European investors, which have focused on enclave sectors such as hotel construction and tourism services. The goal, as noted above, is to enhance Cuba’s competitiveness in value-adding sectors through a proactive industrial policy and in this way diversify production beyond natural resource exports.
Chinese Cubans: A Bridge to the Mainland
Chinese Cubans have made important contributions to Cuba’s economic, social, and cultural development. They have come to symbolize the historical connection between the two countries and now provide important services to visiting Chinese diplomats and businesspeople. The first major wave of Chinese immigrants started in 1847 with the arrival of 206 indentured laborers (or “coolies”) on June 3 and 365 more 10 days later. They were joined by an additional 13,384 by 1853 and by a further 27,405 by 1867. Between 1847 and 1874 the number of Chinese immigrants grew to 126,008 (Padura, 1994; Sha et al., 1986: 138–141). Several Chinese community organizations merged in 1867 under the name Kit Yi Tong, helping members to advance professionally and become retailers and managers of restaurants and hotels. Through these activities and the arrival of more Chinese people from California (fleeing racial discrimination in the wake of the gold rush), the Chinese community of Havana became the largest and most prosperous in any city in the Americas.
Thousands of Chinese Cubans went into battle during Cuba’s two Wars of Independence from Spain, prompting General Gonzalo de Quesada y Aróstegui, a comrade-in-arms of José Martí, to state: “There was not a single Chinese Cuban deserter; there was not a single Chinese Cuban traitor” (Quesada y Aróstegui, 1946: 8). After the victory of the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959, a large (though unknown) number of Chinese Cuban private entrepreneurs left for the United States and other Latin American countries. Today in Cuba there are over 100,000 Chinese descendants of mixed ethnicity who do not speak Chinese and only some 1,000 of pure Chinese descent.
One of the oldest Chinese organizations in Latin America, the Casino Chung Wah, was founded in 1893 and remains the supreme Chinese Cuban institution. Almost as old is the 80-year-old Chinese newspaper Kwong Wah Po. The headquarters of both institutions are located near the 300-meter-long street called Zanja in the heart of Havana’s Chinatown. By 1986 the declining number of first-generation Chinese people resident in Chinatown prompted the Casino Chung Wah to advise the local ethnic associations to open membership to second- and third-generation Chinese Cubans. By the early 1990s most had done so, and by 2006 the associations together boasted a membership of 2,550 individuals (Oca Choy, 2007). Unlike their parents and grandparents, second- and third-generation Chinese Cubans do not hold Chinese citizenship and are more biologically and culturally integrated into Cuban society. According to the records of the Casino Chung Wah, some 163 first-generation Chinese were residing in Havana’s Chinatown in 2011.
In the mid-1990s the Cuban government commenced a project of physical, cultural, and economic revitalization in Chinatown in order to draw attention to Chinese Cuban heritage and accommodate the business interests of the Chinese community. Both the Chinese embassy in Cuba and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of China supported these initiatives. A key figure in the project’s advancement was General Moisés Sío Wong, a Cuban of Chinese ancestry who—until his death in February 2010—was the president of the Cuban National Institute of State Reserves, a brigadier general in the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, and chairman of the Cuba-China Friendship Association. Sío Wong paid numerous visits to China, met with leaders such as former President Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and promoted China’s approach to development, reform, and opening among his Cuban colleagues. In Cuba he was a first point of contact for Chinese government and trade delegations (Waters, 2005). These activities have been enthusiastically taken up by the directors of the Casino Chung Wah and the other Chinese associations.
Alongside the establishment of official accords, visiting Chinese diplomats and businesspeople have made efforts to learn about Cuba’s economy and society, often using Chinatown as a venue for meeting their counterparts. A key broker of such encounters is the Chinese Cuban Wushu Kung Fu master Roberto Vargas Lee. With over 1,700 students in the city of Havana ranging from 4 to 90 years old and a nationally broadcast weekly television show, Vargas Lee introduces Chinese officials and their projects to the Cuban population. He also has economic appeal, in part through his father-in-law Tao Chi, a businessman from Shanghai who has moved to Barrio Chino to invest in the restaurant sector and establish himself as a point of reference for visiting Chinese politicians and executives. He and a small number of Chinese entrepreneurs residing in the neighborhood assist prospective investors by arranging visas, coordinating meetings with industry counterparts, and helping them to navigate Cuba’s business environment. The acclaimed Tien Tan restaurant, owned by Vargas Lee and Tao, has gained notoriety among Chinese visitors as an auspicious venue for meeting Cuban officials. It is said that among the projects born in Tien Tan is the electronics manufacturing partnership between Haier and Grupo de la Electrónica, whose director (and now Cuba’s vice president), Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, is a frequent patron of the restaurant.
Final Considerations: The United States and the Future of Sino-Cuban Cooperation
China and Cuba are socialist countries, and it is natural that they support each other economically and politically. However, in line with the Five Principles (mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence), China will not allow its relationship with Cuba to undermine its relationship with the United States, nor will it enter into mutually beneficial cooperation with the United States in ways that may damage its relations with Cuba. Similarly, it wishes to manage its relationships with Cuba and the United States in such a way that they have no negative bearing on Cuba-U.S. relations.
On April 13, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama lifted travel restrictions on Cuban Americans wishing to visit and send remittances to Cuba, and four days later, at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, he stated that the United States wanted a “new beginning with Cuba” (XN, 2009). However, opponents of the Cuban government in the U.S. Congress have limited the scope of bilateral rapprochement, and Obama’s overtures have not (yet) evolved into substantial policy adjustments. Member countries of the Organization of American States have become increasingly supportive of Cuba’s reintegration into the regional trade and policy architecture and more assertive in conveying this message to the United States. China strongly supports this position and any other measure that improves Cuba-U.S. cooperation and understanding. To this end and in line with its commitment to noninterference, China steadfastly opposes the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba. Chinese leaders have publicly indicated that they will not revise this position in order to strengthen relations with the United States but rather will seek new areas of cooperation among the three countries.
Both China and the United States favor more open markets in Cuba, and Chinese enterprises are helping Cuba to build export capacities and develop its transport, manufacturing, and resource sectors. The expansion of existing U.S. activities in the Cuban agricultural, tourism, and education sectors would bring economic benefits to U.S. firms and generate opportunities for harmonizing approaches to governance and information sharing with Cuba and China. Stronger leadership from the White House on Cuba could therefore lay the foundation of a much-needed “mutually reinforcing diplomacy” with China in the region (Wilder, 2009: 4–7). The prospects for this outcome will largely depend on whether the advantages of engaging Cuba (not least in the oil sector) can sway the opinion of opponents in Congress.
The historical connections and contemporary development of Sino-Cuban relations bode well for the future. For nearly five decades Cuba has made great efforts to develop its economy while fighting the U.S. economic blockade, and, in this light, as the former Cuban ambassador to China Carlos Miguel Pereira (2008) has said, “the relationship between Cuba and China has been and will be continuously of decisive significance. . . . Cuba and China have reached increasing consensus.” China and Cuba have similar ideologies and values, and both have pursued socialism with locally adapted characteristics. Each continues to advocate multipolarity in global affairs while opposing hard-power politics and external intervention, providing a strong basis for political cooperation.
Within the framework of Sino-Cuban political, cultural, scientific, and commercial engagement, an important transformation has been taking place. A key feature of Cuba’s strategy under Raúl Castro is the expansion of joint ventures that draw on the expertise and capacities of foreign enterprises in specialist sectors. Chinese firms are well placed to engage with Cuba in such ventures, as they have gained considerable experience with the demands and pressures of market exchange and yet remain closely tied to long-term and coordinated industrial policies. This combination of approaches has enabled China to work with Cuba to engage global markets even as the two continue to operate within a framework of socialist development. China-Cuba relations will unfold not only in pursuit of twenty-first-century socialism but also in the context of the two countries’ relationships with the United States. A defining challenge for Chinese and U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century will be to look beyond political differences to develop mutually beneficial partnerships, including through trilateral projects with Cuba.
Footnotes
Mao Xianglin is a research fellow on Cuba and the Caribbean at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Adrian H. Hearn is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Liu Weiguang is a research fellow of the Center for Cuban Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Latin American Studies. They thank Richard L. Harris for providing information on recent developments in China-Cuba relations.