Madrid/Miguel Díaz-Canel has made a promise to Xi Jinping this Thursday during his meeting in Beijing: “Cuba is willing to provide a better business environment to Chinese companies,” said the Cuban president. It is the second nation that he commits this week, after he said the same in Hanói to the Vietnamese authorities, with the difference that China is not a country in strong growth like Vietnam, but the second world power.
More skilled than other of his counterparts, XI gave a mesurated response to the Cuban: his country “is willing to continue providing assistance and support for Cuba, to the extent of his possibilities.”
The Chinese president asked to “strengthen the comprehensive strategic cooperation and continue coordination and cooperation” between Beijing and Havana, according to a statement published by the Xinhua state agency, in the context of a meeting in which both leaders also signed bilateral agreements in agricultural, territorial cooperation, artificial intelligence, traditional medicine, infrastructure, press, cinema and television.
They also signed bilateral agreements in agricultural, territorial cooperation, artificial intelligence, traditional medicine, infrastructure, press, cinema and television
But beyond that, everything was words. Xi spoke of the “strong friendship” between the two countries and said that his country “will continue to firmly support Cuba in its fair fight against interference and blockade.” Nothing new that, for the moment, presage as good results as those obtained by Díaz-Canel on the December 2022 tour, when he got a donation of 100 million dollars and the clisoning of the debt.
Díaz-Canel thanked China “his support and assistance disinterested in the economic and social development of Cuba,” although he put the adjective. The Chinese ambassador to Havana, Hua Xin, already made clear in an interview on Wednesday with the official weekly Workers that the help of your country has a more strategic than economic counterpart. “Cuba is the starting point of relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean, the cradle of the Chinese-Celac forum and a bridge for relations in the area,” he said.
Díaz-Canel assisted this Wednesday in Beijing to the commemorative military parade of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific, along with other leaders such as the Russian, Vladimir Putin, or North Korean, Kim Jong-un, in addition to Xi himself, who reviewed the troops.
Faced with the place of preference that Putin and Kim had, escorting the Chinese host, Díaz-Canel had to settle for a Discreet fifth row in the platoon.
After his meeting with XI, and the signature of the documents, among which those related to the strip and the route of the silk, political consultations, practical cooperation, cultural exchanges and the initiative for global security, the Cuban leader went to the monument to the heroes of the people, where he delivered a floral offering. The memorial is precisely located in Tiananmen Square, where in August 1989 there was the serious repression and killing of students who protested against the communist regime.
There, Díaz-Canel placed a floral arrangement inspired by the same that Fidel Castro placed in 1995. “To the memory of the heroes of the Chinese people, in the name of the people, Cuban communist party and government,” says the commemorative film, with the colors of the national flag.
The president also met with Li XI, a member of the Permanent Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which was recently in China. In addition, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, the Chief of International Relations of the Communist Party of Cuba, Emilio Lozada García, and the Cuban ambassador to China, Alberto Blanco Silva.
There were no missing some of the ministers most interested in obtaining something from China, including Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, foreign trade and foreign investment, Vicente de la O Levy, Energy and Mines, Mayra Arevich Marín, Communications, and the president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Juana Lilia Delgado.
In the early hours of the afternoon, the Cuban president also met with the partner Han Zheng, vice president of the People’s Republic of China.
At the end of this visit, Díaz-Canel will leave for Laos in what will be the last stop of his Asian tour before returning to the island.
