Cuba announced on Wednesday that China has formalized a 700 million Chinese Yuan ($100 million) “donation” to the communist Castro regime.
The donation is part of an agreement initially confirmed in November, during an official visit to Beijing by Cuba’s figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Neither side has since offered specifics on what the $100 million fund would be used for.
Díaz-Canel’s visit to China was the fourth and final destination of a tour that also saw the Castro family envoy travel to Algeria, Turkey, and Russia seeking economic help for the communist regime’s desperate economic situation.
According to the Castro regime’s state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN), the formalization was signed in Beijing by Carlos Miguel Pereira, Havana’s ambassador to China, and Tang Wenhong, deputy head of the China International Development Cooperation Agency.
Through his Twitter account, Pereira claimed on Wednesday that the $100 million will be “destined for the execution of high social impact projects linked to prioritized sectors of our economy,” without giving further details.
The diplomatic envoy continued by asserting that the donation “ratifies China’s strategic participation in our economic and social development plans and pays tribute to the construction of a community of shared destiny between our two countries.”
ACN reported that the Cuban and Chinese representatives also reviewed the progress in the agreements signed by Díaz-Canel and genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping during the latter’s visit to China in 2022, without specifying the type or extent of the agreements.
At the time, the independent Cuban outlet 14 y Medio reported that the negotiations were centered around the Castro regime’s debts to China, biotechnology, the island-nation’s ongoing energy crisis, and information surveillance.
In recent years, China has made efforts to become Cuba’s largest trading partner while also providing the Castro regime with financial aid to ensure its continued existence. The latter became a more pressing issue as Venezuela’s socialist regime slowly collapsed economically, leaving it less able to fund the Cuban government. The Castro regime officially joined China’s predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2021 through its “Energy Alliance” branch.
Cuba’s precarious situation has worsened throughout the past year after more than six decades of communist rule. Its infrastructure – buildings, electric grid, and roads, particularly – is currently in ruins and has, alongside violent repression of dissidents, prompted the worst migrant crisis in Cuban history. The Castro regime currently faces a lawsuit in a London court over unpaid government debts owed by the Central Bank of Cuba that go back to the rule of dictator Fidel Castro. The trial’s hearings are scheduled to begin on January 23.
Throughout 2022, nearly 4,000 peaceful protests took place calling for the end of communism in Cuba.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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