Correspondent in Havana
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Cuba Y China signed a bilateral cooperation plan to promote the development of the New Silk Road in terms of infrastructure, technology, culture, education, tourism, energy, communications and bio-technology. According to the EFE agency, the agreement could help improve the lives of Cubans and the economic recovery of the Caribbean island just as it is going through its worst economic crisis in almost thirty years. Although Cuba joined the New Silk Road in 2018, it is now when they sign specific projects; The agreement was signed by He Lifeng, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (CNDR) – China’s main economic planning body – and by Ricardo Cabrisas, Cuban vice prime minister.
The researcher specializing in Latin American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhou Zhiwei, told the state newspaper ‘Global Times’ that the agreement constitutes a new boost to the relations of both communist countries.
Zhou also affirmed that this will promote cooperation between China and Latin America in the tourism and energy sector, the latter one of the most pressing problems of the Caribbean country, which for two years has been aggravated due to the US sanctions and the reduction of the shipments of subsidized crude from Venezuela.
What could be behind this agreement? The Cuban economist residing in Spain, Elías Amor, explained to ABC that the Silk Road is a personal project of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, with which it intends to «turn China into the world’s leading economic power under the scheme of what we could call the socialism of the 21st century Chinese and, behind this strategy of world economic domination, what there is is a position taken by of China in different countries according to their economic and commercial interests ”.
Obtaining minerals
For example, the analyst continues, “they invest the same in sea ports –such as Piraeus, in Greece, or Tangier, in Morocco, which is going to have very important effects on European port competitiveness– which take over resources natural resources in Africa with the aim of obtaining minerals so that the Chinese industry does not have to paralyze production due to the lack of raw materials. Through this new silk route, China has already established agreements in Argentina and in some areas of the Pacific. For the economist, with the signing of the agreement with Cuba, China intends to find a location to place its products in ports such as Mariel, northwest of Havana, just 90 miles from its main economic enemy: the United States. In this way, for its part, Cuba would also be sending a warning to Washington and pressuring them for economic sanctions and the embargo.
“Another thing is that they cover it with a series of agreements on energy matters and others”, but China, due to its economic crisis, cannot “be giving countries natural resources that, logically, it does not have either, but China is a extractive power, which is used in each country of those resources that may be beneficial for the deployment of this geopolitical strategy. What there is is a strategy of a giant, of an amoeba, which is extended to take full advantage of that potential, ”says Amor.
Therefore, it is not a question that China is going to become Cuba’s new free financial support, as the USSR and Venezuela were at the time, because “China what it gives it charges well, and it charges it based on a economic strategy of becoming the world’s leading economic power for which it will use Cuba to the extent that it is useful. At the political level, the insertion of Cuba in the New Silk Road also constitutes an operation to protect the Cuban regime by China. Other analysts consulted by ABC estimate that, in addition to economic competition, China would also be putting pressure on EE.UU.
for your support of Taiwan.
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