It’s the solely communist nation within the Americas, was the primary within the western hemisphere to recognise the Individuals’s Republic of China and is described by Beijing as “good brother, good comrade, good friend”.
However regardless of their shared political legacy — and what Washington says is a historical past of Chinese language spying exercise from Cuba — the island’s financial collapse has damage industrial ties with China simply as Beijing’s strategic rivalry intensifies with the Caribbean island’s arch-enemy, the US.
Chinese language commerce with Latin America has grown greater than tenfold over the previous twenty years and continues to surge: China has change into the second-largest buying and selling accomplice for the area, after the US. However the import of Chinese language items to Cuba fell from $1.7bn in 2017 to $1.1bn in 2022, the final 12 months for which Cuban information is on the market.
The 2 international locations don’t launch information on Chinese language funding in Cuba, however Cuban economist Omar Everleny mentioned it amounted to a “laughably small” proportion of the roughly $160bn Beijing invested in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2005 and 2020.
Chinese language firms concerned with state-backed offers have been owed giant sums by the Cuban state, mentioned folks briefed on the money owed. “All of the big state companies like Huawei and Yutong are owed hundreds of millions of dollars each,” mentioned an abroad businessperson who trades with the island.
Scant uncooked supplies and an unproductive financial system depart the island with little to export to China, whereas imports have diminished lately as hardened US sanctions severely aggravated Havana’s persistent late-payment issues and dried-up credit score traces.
For the reason that Covid-19 pandemic, sugar manufacturing on the island — as soon as a essential business — has plummeted to its lowest ranges in additional than a century: there’s barely sufficient sugar to cowl home necessities. That has resulted within the scrapping of a long-standing settlement to export an annual 400,000 tonnes of sugar to China.
“China is not Cuba’s sugar daddy,” mentioned Fulton Armstrong, former US nationwide intelligence officer for Latin America. “It’s mostly a relationship of solidarity statements. It’s not a strategic relationship for either country.”
Cuba in the present day doesn’t even characteristic amongst China’s top-tier allies in Latin America. Beijing has what it calls “comprehensive strategic partnerships” with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, all main commodity exporters, however not with Cuba.
China publicly helps Cuba’s proper to decide on its personal path to financial improvement “in line with its national conditions”, however privately Chinese language officers have lengthy urged the Cuban management to shift from its vertically deliberate financial system to one thing nearer to the Chinese language mannequin, in response to economists and diplomats briefed on the state of affairs.
Chinese language officers have been perplexed and pissed off on the Cuban management’s unwillingness to decisively implement a market-oriented reform programme regardless of the evident dysfunction of the established order, the folks mentioned.
The fraying of commerce ties varieties a stark distinction with latest many years. After greater than 10 years of maximum shortage after the Soviet Union collapsed, an inflow of imports within the early 2000s made such an affect that Chinese language manufacturers grew to become a part of the Cuban vernacular.
“Taking the Yutong” is now synonymous with “taking the bus” in Havana, whereas Cubans — consultants in gallows humour — baptised the a whole lot of 1000’s of leaky Haier fridges imported as a part of Fidel Castro’s “Energy Revolution” to enhance power effectivity as “Drippys”.
Cuba has been a member of China’s Belt and Street international infrastructure improvement initiative since 2018 and China stays the island nation’s second buying and selling accomplice after Venezuela, which sends the nation oil in return for Cuban medical doctors.
Beijing and Havana have a cyber safety settlement, and over the previous twenty years Chinese language teams Huawei, TP-Hyperlink and ZTE have put in fibre optic cables, WiFi hotspots and different digital infrastructure all through the island.
However Chinese language imports are “way down . . . overall”, mentioned one western businessman based mostly in Havana. “Exporters are shifting away from the China-Cuba credit lines and moving to the private sector.”
Cuba nonetheless exports nickel, zinc and luxurious cigars to China, leases medical doctors in return for laborious forex cost, and co-operates on biotech.
Cuban President Miguel Diáz-Canel has twice visited Beijing and introduced again politically helpful handouts, together with medical gear in the course of the pandemic, a $100 million donation final 12 months and 1000’s of tonnes of rice donations this 12 months. However he has been unable to coax higher financial integration.
“The Chinese don’t give away a lot of charity,” mentioned William LeoGrande, professor of presidency at American College. “The Cubans right now are in a position where they need charity, and they don’t have much to offer in return.”
Beijing additionally has a a lot lower-profile safety relationship with Havana than does Moscow, which is overtly targeted on Cuba’s geopolitical worth as an in depth neighbour of the US. Russian naval flotillas have docked in Havana twice this 12 months in a present of navy energy. Russian commerce with Cuba has surged lately, pushed by US sanctions on each international locations and the warfare in Ukraine.
There have been stories suggesting China has renewed efforts to make the most of Cuba’s strategic location with digital eavesdropping stations on the island.
The Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research, a Washington think- tank, mentioned in July there have been “growing signs that China’s economic and political leverage may be opening doors for its military and intelligence services in Cuba”. US secretary of state Antony Blinken mentioned final 12 months that Chinese language spying operations in Cuba have been “a serious concern”.
However requested concerning the CSIS report, a US state division official mentioned the Biden administration believed its “diplomatic outreach has slowed down [China’s] efforts to project and sustain its military power around the world”.
LeoGrande mentioned some in Florida and Washington have been eager to create a “Chinese bogeyman in Cuba”. “It serves the interests of conservative Cuban-Americans, who are always looking for reasons not to improve US-Cuban relations, and in the broader policy community it serves the interest of those who think that China is a global threat.”
