Fidel Castro and "China's lesson for Cuba": A Chinese perspective

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 189, 2007, Pages 24-42

  Cheng, Yinghong ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC POLICY; FOREIGN POLICY; POLITICAL RELATIONS; SOCIALISM;

EID: 33947519692     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741006000786     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. For example, a political drama named "Che Guevara," created by a group of China's New Left intellectuals and artists, took the Cuban hero as a revolutionary icon in the globalization era to criticize China's post-Mao social transformation and spurred a sensational debate between New Leftist and liberal intellectuals from 1999 to 2001. The Global Times (Huanqiu shibao, a member of the People's Daily News Group focusing on international news and one of the fastest growing newspapers in China with nationalistic and anti-American rhetoric since the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999) has covered Fidel Castro with enthusiasm. The most recent example was its lengthy report on Castro, entitled "Cuba hails Castro," published on 27 December 2004. Written by Liu Hong, a People's Daily Latin America journalist, the report detailed Castro's recovery from his fall and minor injury in October 2004 and Cuban people's relief and affection for their leader.
2. For an early report on Hu's internally circulated speech, see Yu Wenxue, "Hu Jintao's inauguration speech," Kaifang (Open Monthly, a Hong Kong based political monthly), December 2004, pp. 12-13.
3. K. S. Karol, Guerrillas in Power (New York: Hill & Wang, 1969), p. 304.
4. Granma Weekly Review (English version of Granma, the Cuban party's daily), 15 March 1966.
5. For a recent analysis on Sino-Cuban relations from 1959 to 1966 see Yinghong Cheng, "Sino-Cuban relations in the critical years of the Cuban revolution: In the eyes of Chinese diplomats," forthcoming in the Journal of Cold War Studies, spring 2007.
6. Journal of Cold War Studies, 4 March 1979.
7. Qian Qichen, Waijiao shiji (Ten Episodes in my Diplomatic Career) (Hong Kong: San lian Ltd, 2004), pp. 138-42.
8. Ibid. p. 141.
9. Ibid.
10. Castro's interview with Ted Turner, 10 June 1990. The text of the interview can be found at http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro/1990/ 19900709.
11. Xu Yichong, "Jiang Zeming zhuxi dui Guba de lishi xin fangwen" ("President Jiang Zemin's historical visit to Cuba"), in Xin Zhongguo waijiao fengyun (New China's Diplomatic Events) (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 1996), Vol. 4, pp. 64-74.
12. Ibid. p. 64.
13. In the evening of 18 October 1964, for example, three days after Nikita Khrushchev stepped down, Castro suddenly entered the Chinese embassy asking for dinner, but his real intention was to mediate between Beijing and Moscow in the wake of Khrushchev's disgrace. He hoped that the change in the Soviet leadership would remove obstacles in Sino-Russian relations, and thus would make it a lot casier for Cuba to deal with both of them. Wang Youping, My Ambassador Career in Seven Countries (Nanjing: Jiangsu People's Publisher, 1996), pp. 85-87. Wang was the Chinese ambassador to Cuba from 1964 to 1969.
14. Ibid. pp. 93-95. Wang's Sino-Cuban account went beyond his tenure in Havana.
15. Yichong, "President Jiang Zemin's historical visit to Cuba," p. 65.
16. Castro intervened into the preparation for Jiang's reception with detailed concern. For example, at the request of the Chinese advance dispatchers, he ordered the Cuban security and communication agencies to prepare a hotel, instead of the well-equipped State House, to host the delegation. He arranged to bus 4,000 people to the airport and organize more along the road to greet Jiang, a practice suspended in the early 1990s because of the energy shortage. Ibid. pp. 66-68.
17. Ibid. p. 67.
18. Chen Jinhua, "Pe kasiteluo fanghua de jianwen he gansi hou" ("I accompanied Fidel Castro in China"), in Zhong heng, Vol. 5 (2003), pp. 13-15.
19. Ibid. p. 14.
20. Ibid. p. 14.
21. Ibid. p. 15.
22. Ibid.
23. Qiu Yuanping, "Shiji zhi jiao de qingan he juezhe - shm Hu Jintao tongzhi chufang La Mei san guo yinxiang" ("Sentiment and choices at the turn of the century - accompanying Comrade Hu Jintao on his visit to Latin America"), in Historical Literature Editorial Group (ed.), Historical Moments: True Stories of the Chinese Communist Party's Foreign Communication (Beijing: Dangdai shijie chubanshe, 1997), pp. 248-57.
24. Ibid. p. 248.
25. Ibid. p. 250.
26. Ibid. p. 252.
27. In addition to the above four officials' accounts, Wang Chengjia, the Chinese ambassador to Cuba from 1999 to 2001, published Interpreting the "Castro Myth" - My Friendship with Fidel (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2005), but he was very cautious not to make any comments on "China's lesson for Cuba," except for one detail regarding Raul Castro which is introduced below.
28. One example of Cuba's sensitivity and the Chinese response to it is that in 1999, the Cuban Embassy in Beijing protested at the publication of a biography of Fidel Castro in Chinese, because of its critical tone on Castro's economic and social policies especially in the 1960s. The Chinese government responded by banning the book, recalling all copies from bookshops and punishing the publishers. The book was Fidel Castro: The Last Revolutionary of the 20th Century, written by the author of this article and co-published by Shanghai Far East Publisher and Foreign Language Publisher in Beijing.
29. Xiao Feng, "Guba zai wenbu de gaige kaifang zhonggonggu he fazhan shehuizhuyi" ("Cuba is consolidating and developing socialism in gradual reforms and opening to the world"), Studies of Latin America, No. 3 (1997), pp. 24-29;
30. Xu Shicheng, "Cong Gu gong wu da kan Guba zhengzhi jin ji xinshi" ("The Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party and the Cuban political/economic situation"), Studies of Latin America, No. 2 (1998), pp. 5-7.
31. The Cuban reforms introduced in the two articles include allowing individuals to possess foreign currencies, loosening control over small private businesses, establishing tax systems, limiting free service and welfare benefit, opening up a free market for agricultural products and handicrafts, and most importantly, attracting foreign investment.
32. The conference was entitled "Cuba: Future prospects and integration into the western hemisphere," organized by the Caribbean Council (London), European Commission, Cuba Policy Foundation (Washington, DC) and Ford Foundation.
33. http://www.cass.net.cn/chinese/s27_lms/bensuo-kuaixun/Untitled-5.htm.
34. Andres Oppenheimer, "China's brotherly advice to Cuba: Start embracing market reform," The Miami Herald, No. 3 (2005).
35. For example Xu was invited by Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (the Latin American Council for the Social Sciences) to participate in the conference "The global new hegemony, change, choice and socialism," held in Havana in late October 2003. The keynote speakers included Francisco de Oliveira, Samir Amin, Noam Chomsky, Robert Dahl and Perry Anderson. Xu's presentation was entitled "Neo-imperialism and America's new hegemony." The conference lasted for five days. Fidel Castro attended all sessions and made a five-and-a-half hour speech immediately after Xu's. Xu presented his newest Chinese book Cuba to Castro at the occasion.
36. Xu Shicheng, "Ten years of reform in Cuba: Achievements and problems." This is an online article published at http://www.cass.net.en/chinese/s27_lms/zhuanti_bg/refonna/cuba.htm, the website of the ILAS.
37. Xu Shicheng, "The current situation of economic reforms and economy in Cuba," published in Latin American Studies (2004), p. 23. This article resulted from Xu's trip to Cuba for the conference (n. 32) and his close observation of Cuba's reforms during his visit.
38. Xu Shicheng, Clash: Castro and the US Presidents (Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe, 1999), p. 158.
39. Wang Chengjia, Interpreting the "Castro Myth," pp. 30-31. Moises Sio Wong was and still is the Chairman of the Cuban-Chinese Friendship Association, because of his Chinese stock.
40. The Cuba Transition Project is supported by the Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean, US Agency for International Development, operated by the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. It has resulted in more than ten monographic research reports since 2000. The Inter-American Dialogue project was closely associated with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It has resulted in an anthology entitled Transforming Socialist Economics: Lessons for Cuba and Beyond, edited by Shahid Javed Burki and Daniel P. Erikson (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2005).
41. Shahid Javed Burki, "China: The new global giant," in ibid. p. 172. He earlier also directed the Bank's projects in China.
42. William Ratliff, "China's 'lessons' for Cuba's transition?" the Cuba Transition Project, University of Miami, 2004, pp. 19-25.
43. Ibid. p. 34.
44. William Ratliff, "After Fidel," Hoover Digest (2004).
45. Quoted from Ratliff, "China's 'lessons'."
46. Domingo Amuchastegui, "Cuba's armed forces: Power and reforms," the Cuba Transition Project, University of Miami, 2003.
47. As a matter of fact, as China's "economic tsar" in the 1990s, Zhu did not visit Cuba nor meet Castro until February 2003 when the latter visited China the second time, while all other top Chinese leaders had either been to Cuba or met Castro in the late 1990s.
48. Amuchastegui, "Cuba's armed forces," pp. 113-14.
49. The Guardian, 17 November 1999. "Socialism or death" has been Castro's ideological trademark slogan since the early 1990s while "Venceremos!" ("We will triumph!") has been used since the 1960s.
50. Wang Chengjia, Interpreting the "Castro Myth," pp. 22-23, 26. The Chinese military review was broadcast on China's Central Television's international channel which could not be received in Cuba, but the embassy was equipped with its own satellite network.
51. One example of the Cuban critique of Soviet economic policies in the 1960s is the Cuban "great debate" on the incentives from 1962 to 1965. In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union was engaged in an economic reform initiated by the discussion on Liebermanism, which advocated more market mechanism, independent management and individual incentives. This reform was echoed sympathetically in most East European countries, but was harshly criticized by the Chinese as just another example of the Soviet revisionism. The Cuban attitude was ambiguous as the leadership was divided. Some reform-minded economic leaders seized the opportunity to blame the Stalinist command economy for Cuba's economic difficulties. But Che Guevara, the head of the National Bank and the ministry of industry, argued that state planning, central budgeting and an egalitarian way of determining workers' rewards were too important for communism to be compromised. Fidel Castro maintained neutral by keeping silent, but his comments and policies after the mid-1960s revealed his disapproval of the Soviet reforms. He later even blamed the Soviet "liberal" polices for the "Prague spring" of 1968. For this debate, see Bertram Silverman, Man and Socialism in Cuba - The Great Debate (New York, 1971),
52. and Che Guevara, "On the budget system of finance," "The Cuban economy" and "Socialism and man in Cuba," in Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara (Boston: MIT Press, 1969), pp. 112-36, 137-48, 155-69. For Castro's accusation against the Soviet Union for its responsibility for the Prague spring, see the text of his televised speech, published in GWR, 25 August 1968.
53. Xu Shicheng, "The Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party," p. 6.
54. Larry Rohter, "Cuban Communist Party peers ahead, then votes to march in place," New York Times, 12 October 1997.
55. Xu Shicheng, "The Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party," pp. 28-29. According to Ratliff who has corresponded with some of China's Cubanists at the ILAS, one of them (anonymous) told him that "the most important thing is not [the application of] specific measures, but a changing of the traditional mentality" of egalitarianism.
56. Ratliff, China's Lesson for Cuba? pp. 23-24.
57. Ibid. p. 20.
58. When Deng died in 1997, Castro praised his "consolidation of socialism" with "wise application" of Marxism and Maoism in China's reforms. Ibid.