The Communist Party of Cuba thanked its counterpart in China on Tuesday for pressuring the administration of President Joe Biden to invite Cuba to next week’s Summit of the Americas, an event technically reserved for democracies.
China is one of the world’s most repressive states, on the other side of the planet from North and South America. It has nonetheless used its Foreign Ministry and propaganda arms to condemn the Biden administration for not officially inviting Cuba to the Summit. The Summit is meant to unite members of the Organization of American States (OAS), whose charter emphasizes that states must be free democracies.
Biden has so far formally disinvited Venezuela and Nicaragua, the other two leftist dictatorships in the hemisphere, but at press time has not yet issued an invite or rejection to Cuba. Cuban puppet leader Miguel Díaz-Canel has stated that he would not go to the event, taking place in Los Angeles, even if he was invited.
Other leftist leaders – including those of Mexico, Argentina, and Bolivia – have threatened to boycott the event if Cuba is not invited. Brazil’s conservative President Jair Bolsonaro had independently threatened not to go for unclear reasons but confirmed his attendance last week while questioning Biden’s mental faculties.
Hosts traditionally enjoy full discretion in who to invite to the Summit of the Americas.
Cuba is the oldest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, run by a communist regime since 1959. It had never received an invitation to the Summit of the Americas before 2015, when then-President Barack Obama implemented a conciliatory policy towards the Castro regime that resulted in mass state violence and enhanced repression of dissidents on the island.
At the two Summits of the Americas that it participated in – the 2015 Panama summit and the 2018 Peru summit – Cuban regime agents organized mobs to disrupt summit events, vandalize democratic materials, and silence pro-democracy dissidents. In Panama, a Cuban regime mob was caught on video gang beating a Cuban ex-political prisoner who was attempting to visit a statue of Cuban founding father José Martí in Panama City.
The Chinese Communist regime, which has no role in the OAS, has condemned Washington for failing to formally invite Cuba despite its extremely disruptive displays at past summits. Cuban Ambassador to China thanked Beijing for its support on Tuesday, according to the communist pan-American outlet Telesur.
“It is clear once again that the United States lacks the possibility of imposing its plans, interests, and positions in Latin America and the Caribbean, which have changed enough to stop being the backyard,” Ambassador Miguel Pereira complained, according to the outlet.
“Cuba appreciates China’s position in the face of exclusions at the Summit of the Americas,” the Telesur report continued. “Cuba representatives thanked for speaking out against the U.S. excluding countries when hosting the Summit of the Americas; a decision considered another maneuver by Washington to impose its interests.”
China’s state broadcaster CGTN published a video on Tuesday featuring a state-approved analyst – Yan Jin of the Chinese Contemporary International Relations Institutes – condemning the United States for not explicitly inviting Cuba to the Summit.
“Latin American countries had a lot of hope for a long time about this summit, thinking they could meet and jointly find solutions to alleviate the dilemma of socioeconomic development caused by the [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic and economic recession,” Yan said in Spanish, “despite this, the host, the united states, seems to have very little interest in the topics that most concern the member states.”
“It doesn’t matter how they [America] explain their intention. The United States always counts on the stereotype that Latin America is its backyard and its greatest concern in this region is to form alliances to repress leftist states and achieve absolute control over this region,” Yan concluded, predicting the summit would be “the most embarrassing, divided, [and] failed in its 28-year history.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry began pressuring Biden to invite Cuba – as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela – to the Summit in mid-May.
“I wonder, aren’t Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela countries of the Americas? The Summit of the Americas should not be gauged exclusively by U.S. standards, serve U.S. interests only, or be reduced to a ‘Summit of the United States of America,'” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said during a regular ministry press briefing on May 10.
Zhao went on to accuse Washington of “bullying” Latin America and bringing it “wanton exploitation, willful sanctions, inflation, political interference, regime change, [the] assassination of politicians, and even armed aggression,” without specifying any individual cases of any of the listed affronts.
China regularly invades Latin American waters with illegal fishing vessels and has grossly indebted Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, and Bolivia, among other regional nations, presenting a threat to their sovereignty.
In gratitude for China’s support, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, Granma, routinely publishes pro-China propaganda. Last week, Granma published an article praising Chinese Ambassador to Havana Ma Hui for declaring that China and Cuba “are good partners with a high grade of mutual political confidence.”
“The two [communist] parties and nations share the same ideals and beliefs and maintain special and friendly relations,” Ma asserted.
Granma also praised China for donating a paltry $100,000 to help Cuba rebuild the Hotel Saratoga, a luxury hotel that exploded last month after decades of neglect.