In China, Last station of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s alms tour, the Cuban delegation signed a dozen agreements and appealed to “friendship between peoples” to extend the terms of Havana’s debt with Beijing and obtain an “emergency donation” about a hundred million dollars.
Negotiations focused on biotechnology, essential to continue manufacturing vaccines, energy and the most recent obsession of the Cuban regime: cybersecurity and computer surveillance, which will give it more technological resources to control the population and prevent new protests like those of 9/11. July 2021.
Locked in a “bubble” against the outbreak of coronavirus that China is going through, Díaz-Canel told reporters accompanying him on the trip that the results “are going above our expectations”. According to him, Xi told him that “a solution must be found to all the problems with Cuba,” despite “the problems with the debt.”
His “small country” – as he has defined Cuba also in front of Putin and Erdogan – will pay, although he is not sure when. Guarantees must be provided to China, he explained, to “help the friend to have security in what we are doing”, since “they are taking a little from them” to support the default of the debt, whose payment became impossible since 2019 .
Díaz-Canel affirmed that he felt the need to “explain” to Xi the string of “involuntary” calamities that had shaken the island
Díaz-Canel affirmed that he felt the need to “explain” to Xi the string of “involuntary” calamities that had shaken the Island: accidents, cyclones, the coronavirus and, naturally, the “intensification” of the blocking of the United States, which has caused a “tense situation” for its government. “It is not the same when one can speak, when one can explain, when things can be understood from the sensibility,” he said.
The Chinese “are open,” concluded the president, which he interpreted as a sign that his arguments about Cuba’s willingness to welcome foreign investment had given results.
Díaz-Canel will return to Cuba with an “emergency cash donation” of around one hundred million dollars, the result of one of the twelve agreements signed with Xi. In addition, another donation of food and medicine is taken, signed by Rodrigo Malmierca, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, who has carried out all the specific negotiations in Algeria, Turkey, Russia and now in China.
Beijing will also offer the Island the essential raw materials – in addition to a financial donation – to complete the number of school uniforms for the course that begins next Monday, and which will start with a notable material deficit. Another of the contracts guarantees the supply of “kitchen utensils for high-impact programs.”
Beijing will also offer the Island the essential raw materials – in addition to a financial donation – to complete the number of school uniforms for the course that begins next Monday
Several agreements, the most ambiguous, define a “political consultation plan” between the Cuban and Chinese foreign ministries. Signed by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, the nature of these “consultations” that Cuba will be obliged to offer until 2025 was not explained. The “exchange and cooperation” contract between the Cuban Communist Party and the Cuban Communist Party is also of a political nature. CCP.
The expansion of the new Silk Road and the island’s role as “gateway” to Latin America were ensured by various “memorandums of understanding” signed by Malmierca.
In an interview published in cubadebateAlejandro Gil, Minister of Economy and member of the Cuban delegation, assured that these agreements are the gateway to “new financing” from Beijing. Funds will be provided to activate the Floating Dock installed in 2019 –essential for the construction and repair of ships on the Island– and to execute a program of “reconversion or modernization” of the Cuban press, one of the main interests of the Chinese Communist Party, according to Gil.
The financing of a wind farm and a photovoltaic farm in Las Tunas, and two biopesticide plants, in Havana and Villa Clara, are also being explored. And Chinese companies have been invited to make “direct investments” in Cuban territory, the minister said.
The most disturbing agreements, however, are those that promise Chinese aid in the digital and telecommunications spheres.
The most disturbing agreements, however, are those that promise Chinese aid in the digital and telecommunications fields. In addition to the execution of a “telepresence system in the Biocubafarma Cloud” –which promotes digitization in the vaccine and medicine manufacturing sector–, China signed a project to organize a National Identity System for natural persons and another for Wireless Network Supervision.
Both projects –backed by an economic donation– are joined by a Forensic Data Laboratory that the Government plans to execute. The implications of these contracts for espionage and state surveillance of the Cuban population will be notable, since they guarantee the use on the island of the digital surveillance systems that Xi Jinping and his government have been implementing in their own country for years.
With the creation, this Wednesday, of a National Working Group for Cybersecurity, the Cuban regime takes more concrete steps in the surveillance of the digital environment and Cuban communications. A recent alliance between Xetid, the technology company of the Armed Forces, and Etecsa, makes evident the growing government interest in executing an “offensive” on social networks.
This was confirmed by the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, who together with Álvaro López Miera, Minister of the Armed Forces, organized a cybersecurity workshop to expose the surveillance equipment –several of them manufactured in China– that the Government will install in the Island.
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