Chinese presence, interests in Cuba growing

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Sun, Jun. 24, 2007
Chinese presence, interests in Cuba growing
More Chinese are living, studying and working in Cuba as business links and trade between the two countries increase.
BY NATHANIEL HOFFMAN
McClatchy News Service

HAVANA --

~snip~
China is now Cuba's second-largest trading partner, after Venezuela. Trade between Cuba and China soared last year to $2.4 billion, Ricardo Alarcón, Cuba's national assembly president, said during a recent trip to China.

China's oil company is exploring offshore oil, and Chinese businesses are flourishing. Inexpensive Chinese sneakers and auto parts fill Havana's bare-bones shops. Chinese pharmaceuticals are being developed in ventures with Cuban firms.
(snip)

The trade embargo prevents most U.S. businesses from trading with Cuba, and a U.S. travel ban keeps most Americans from visiting the island. The Chinese have no such difficulties.

Shen, for example, represents one of China's largest bus manufacturers, the Yutong Group. In just a few years in Cuba, he has sold thousands of Chinese buses as replacements for a tattered fleet that largely had succumbed to age and a lack of spare parts.

''Every day more Chinese companies come here to invest and sell things, much more than four years ago,'' he said in fluent Spanish.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/149552.html

---

Three sentries at the gate: Cuban "exile" Republican Congresspeople
from Miami, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario and brother Lincoln Diaz-Balart
who fight every single day to make sure ordinary Americans get absolutely
NO CHANCE at all to travel only 90 miles south of Florida to Cuba.

They, _Bush willing, will make sure Americans are denied all opportunity to travel to the same island they, Cuban "exiles" and families, until recently, were free to visit for vacations, holidays, sight-seeing, seeing relatives.

[Selatius]

1. China is coming in to fill the vacuum of an imploding, decaying American hegemony.

Bush simply sped up the process.

[IndianaGreen]

13. China is a rising hyperpower, while the US is in rapid collapse, like ancient Rome

American students are studying Chinese, and travelling to China. Why shouldn't Cubans be friends with China, a country that has never attacked them or imposed embargoes on them?

[DFW]

2. This was inevitable

Cuba has precious little to offer outside of tourism, tobacco and sugar cane.

They WOULD be raking it in from tourism if it weren't for this anachronism
of an embargo, and they would be spending it right back with American companies.

Of course, to satisfy the political whims of a very few and the unrealistic nostalgic
dreams of others, the U.S. embargo stands. The Chinese are not stupid, and they have a few
hundred billion dollars looking to be invested somewhere, and Cuba will talk to anyone
willing to show them the money. That should have been the USA. The Cubans have been waiting,
ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, for us. I don't blame the Cubans for running out of
patience. I blame Washington for running out of common sense--oops, I may be going out on a
limb here by assuming they had any to lose in the first place.

[UpInArms]

3. ah, the sweet smell of irony in the morning

China - the huge communist nation that enjoys "favored trade status" with the USoA and has practically (with the help of the corporations and the BFEE) bankrupted us, now has a huge foot - emmm - make that a half of a body - in the door at Cuba - where we (the average American citizen) cannot go or do biz because it's a "communist" country.

[Vinca]

4. The Cuban embargo is idiotic. It shouldn't be a surprise that

after we left the door wide open, China stepped through.

[Mika]

6. ".. after we left the door wide open.." WE? Excuse me, but, Cuba belongs to Cubans not the USA!

"we left the door wide open"?


Actually, we closed the door on ourselves.

:banghead:

Cuba has been seeking normalization of relations w/the USA for 47 years.

[Vinca]

7. By closing the door we opened it for the Chinese. Duh. nt

[Mika]

8. It was open to China all along. "We" had nothing to do with that.

It is not an 'us or them' ultimatum/option.

Cuba is capable of having relations with the nations of the world at the same time.

[Vinca]

11. But think of all the possibilities if we had not had an embargo on

Cuba. For starters - and this is what makes it puzzling Georgie Boy hasn't done away with the embargo - they've got oil. Lots of it. China, of course, will be the recipient. China is setting up businesses on the island of Cuba - why ship cheap crap from Asia to stupid Americans when you can schlep it 90 miles over open ocean? I imagine there is an "up" side in that the Cuban people will be the beneficiaries of the outsourced labor - for whatever that might be worth. I guess what really bothers me about this state of affairs is that China pretty much owns us and the activity in Cuba is reminiscent of the Soviet Union in the late 1950's, early '60's. Not that anyone would consider invading a country that hadn't done anything to them.
:sarcasm: In any case, you're right it isn't an "us" or "them" ultimatum, but "us" is a bit stupid in relations with Cuba . . . IMHO.

[enid602]

5. embarrassment

It will be an embarrassment for us if, after lifting the embargo the Cubans have no need to buy anything from the US.

[roody]

9. Any american who can buy a ticket to Cancun

then a ticket to Cuba has 100% chance to go to Cuba. Don't let them dictate your life. Cuban officials will not stamp your passport if you do not wish them to.
Be watching for Pastors for Peace caravan in July---going to Cuba and saying so to Bush & Co.

www.ifconews.org

[Disturbed]

10. Have succesive US Govts kept the Embargo in place

because they are afraid of losing votes of Cubans in the US?

[Selatius]

14. Did Carter and Johnson pander to the Cuban vote? I hardly think so. That said, I think...

the reason the embargo is kept on Cuba is to make their economy look even more ragged than it should look, and that only helps paint the illusion that capitalism is the only way, as opposed to more hybrid systems.

[brentspeak]

12. Our stupid, senseless embargo policy has allowed this to happen