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ReD_ReBeL
16th January 2006, 03:33
By Judi McLeod & Brian McAdam
Saturday, December 31, 2005

Just before Christmas, reports from Havana said China extended a "multimillion-dollar loan" to the Castro government.

"Cuba’s Castro government announced recently it will be opening a consulate in Guandong, China, in order to support Chinese trade and investment in Cuba." (Jim Burns, OnLine Human Events, Dec. 27, 2005).

With its advantageous geographic location, Cuba is an open door to the U.S. for China.

Cuban Parliament Leader Ricardo Alarcon and Luo Gan, a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, have been talking about the "excellent political, economic and (Communist) party ties between China and Cuba."

Alarcon, according to some wire service reports, stressed that the visit by Luo Gan is an expression of the ties that will continue to strengthen.

For free market-challenged Cubans, the latest Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry’s data says buses, pressure cookers, light bulbs, refrigerators, television sets and bicycles from China are now flooding the Cuban economy.

Like its political friend Canada, Cuba is open investment territory for Communist China. Indeed, as of September 2005, China rose from being Cuba’s fourth biggest trading partner in 2004 to being the second biggest now.

The Red Dragon has the world’s superpower well covered with tentacles in America’s northern neighbour and in the Communist island off its Florida coastline.

With American companies like Microsoft and General Motors investing in China, American support for Cuba comes from even more bizarre quarters. It was Teresa Heinz, the wife of Senator John Kerry, who hooked Castro’s Cuba up to the Internet by underwater cable.

"A month after Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced an oil discovery off Cuban waters early this year, the government signed a production-sharing agreement with Sinopec, China’s second-largest state oil company.

The deal involves drilling just a few dozen miles from Key West. Fla." OnLine Human Events).

After a 12-day tour of Latin America last year, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced his country would invest more than $500-million in Cuba’s nickel industry, which includes one of the world’s largest nickel reserves.

Cuba will be sending 4,400 tons of nickel per annum to China.

Bicycles, scooters and smoke-belching automobiles long past their safe date are no longer the only means of transportation in Cuba. China will sell 1,000 of the Yutong-brand buses to Cuba on easy credit terms, and has already made good on the delivery of about 200 buses.

Until China began to fill the gap, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major inconvenience for the Castro government.

By investing in Cuba, China is after bigger game and gets to keep a watchful eye on Uncle Sam.

Under contemporary circumstances, celebrating the end of the Cold War is imprudent. The end of the Cold War only arrested imminent Soviet threat, but went on to morph into a global warming-style threat of takeover by stealth of an unsuspecting U.S. by the insatiable Red Dragon.

Meanwhile, by hooking up Fidel Castro’s Cuba to the World Wide Internet, the wife of a certain senator left the country of her residency in a vulnerable position.

I think this is very good news and 2006 seems to be shaping up pretty well for our Cuban Comrades.
Whats your opinions on this?

Amusing Scrotum
16th January 2006, 03:59
Do you have a link for that report?

Anyway....


Originally posted by ReD_ReBeL+--> (ReD_ReBeL)I think this is very good news[/b]

Good news, well I'm more sceptical....


Originally posted by ReD_ReBeL+--> (ReD_ReBeL)Just before Christmas, reports from Havana said China extended a "multimillion-dollar loan" to the Castro government.[/b]

The IMF and World Bank "loans" money all the time. Rarely does such a loan have positive effects and without seeing the "fine print" of this particular loan, how are we supposed to know that this loan does have strings attached?


Originally posted by ReD_ReBeL
"Cuba’s Castro government announced recently it will be opening a consulate in Guandong, China, in order to support Chinese trade and investment in Cuba."

So China (a "Communist" country which has Capitalists in their party) is "investing" in Cuba. Do you think the Capitalists within the Chinese Government are going to be happy if those investments aren't profitable?


[email protected]
Like its political friend Canada, Cuba is open investment territory for Communist China.

Consider those words, an "open investment territory". Have we not heard those (or similar) words used by American Presidents and British Prime Ministers to describe their relationship with certain underdeveloped nations? ....and we know what it really means when they use such words don't we?


ReD_ReBeL
Whats your opinions on this?

Well it's (probably) to early to tell, but I doubt this will be a "good thing" in the long run.

ReD_ReBeL
16th January 2006, 16:49
Do you have a link for that report?


Source (http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover123105m.htm)

Theres a bit more in that i didn't paste the whole article, but i got the major parts.

Janus
16th January 2006, 18:11
Well, China has been extending its hand towards many countries as a result of the strengthening economy. Cuba is just one of many nations that China is trying to extend relations with, particularly because the Sino-Soviet split is long gone and any hard feelings have gone with it.

We'll have to see how this plays out but it could be potentially beneficial for Cuba perhaps.

WorkerBolshevik
19th January 2006, 06:27
What we see playing out in the coming years, which offers much more potential to Cuba, is the possibility of increased relations and trade with the new Bolivarian Socialist Countries in Latin America. Such relations have already begun between Venezuela and Cuba, and Bolivia is sure to follow now that Morales has been elected. Perhaps the biggest victory for the Cuban Revolution would be if Obrador is elected in Mexico this summer, which seems ever more likely, as it would extend a branch of Bolivarianism into Mexico, and would surely be sympathetic to the cause of the Cuban Workers and Peasants. These opportunities seem much better and more true to the ideals of the Cuban Revolution to me than increased trade with China, for though Bolivarian Socialism doesn't go all the way, it is still leagues ahead of what China has become.

PRC-UTE
19th January 2006, 08:18
I share Armchair's scepticism.

Is this not the same "comradely" China that not only refused to aid the Maoists in Nepal and India but offered to help their enemies crush them?

Meaning I doubt they're investing just to be good comrades as the USSR actually did with Cuba.

Abood
27th January 2006, 19:06
I think that socialism in one country can be established but will not succeed very much, as capitalist countries will not trade with it, such as the US and Cuba. But Communism SURELY needs to be worldwide. But personally, i think that all borders should be knocked down...