Free Cuba Now!

To promote a nonviolent transition to a Cuba that respects human rights, political and economic freedoms, and the rule of law.   The bloody origins of the “special friendship” between Communist China and Cuba Communist China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on June 4, 2024 described Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla as a “good old friend of China.” Rodríguez’s official visit from June 5 to 9 as a special envoy of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel highlights the two communist regimes’ “special friendship.” The relationship between the two communist regimes has been complicated, and not always good. On September 28, 1960 the Cuban dictatorship diplomatically recognizedthe Peoples Republic of China. Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a Cuban delegation’s visit to Mainland China and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high ranking Chinese officials in November 1960 to discuss conditions in Cuba and in Latin America, and the prospects for communist revolution in the Western Hemisphere. This was at a time that Havana still had normal diplomatic relations with the United States. Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States were severedon January 3, 1961. Subsequently, between 1960 and 1964 the two regimes collaborated closely together, but relations between China and Cuba cooled in 1964 when the Castro regime sided with the Soviet Union in the Sino-Soviet  split, for instance. The warming of relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States beginning in the Nixon Administration did not improve matters. Moreover, Chieu Luu, in his CNN article  “Castro’s Cuba and Mao’s China: Communist regimes that never saw eye to eye” published on November  26, 2016 recalled the late Cuban dictator’s critique of Mao Zedong in 1977. “I believe that Mao (Zedong) destroyed with his feet what he did with his head for many years. I’m convinced of that. And some day the Chinese people, the Communist party of China will have to recognize that,” Castro told American journalist Barbara Walters in May 1977. He went on to list what he said were Mao’s grave mistakes: a cult personality and abuse of great power. “I also acquired that power, but I never abused it, nor did I retain it in my hands,” Castro said. Although both Cuba and China were functioning Communist states, Castro told Walters he viewed China as a “good ally” of the US, which was a bitter enemy of Cuba. Like Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro ruled Cuba until he was physically unable to do so, and despite the old Cuban dictator’s claim  exercised absolute power and abused it, but his critique of Mao’s tyrannical rule was mendacious. After that, relations between Beijing and Havana improved when relations between the United States and China worsened.   Fidel Castro openly supported Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and his government was one of the few in the world to do so. Cuban foreign minister Isidoro Malmierca commended Chinese authorities for “defeating the counterrevolutionary acts.”    Backing the massacre of thousands of Chinese nationals by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on the orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resulted in Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s high-level visit to Cuba in 1993, followed by Raul Castro’s first visit to China in 1997.   In conclusion, the “special friendship” between Cuba’s and China’s Communist dictatorships was founded on the mass killing of Chinese civilians by the PLA in June 1989, and Havana’s public support for this crime against humanity.   Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on June 6, 2024 (Twitter)     Full article     Center for a Free Cuba 417 West Broad Street, Suite 204 Falls Church, VA 22046 www.cubacenter.org Preferences  |  Unsubscribe