(EFE).- The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, sent “warm congratulations” to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, wishing him “success in performance” after his re-election as head of the Communist Party of China during the organization’s recent congress.
“We are convinced that, under your leadership, the Communist Party and the Chinese people will continue to reap new achievements in the construction of socialism in the new era,” said Díaz-Canel in his message highlighted this Sunday by the official press.
The also leader of the Communist Party of Cuba highlighted the “theoretical and practical contributions” made under the leadership of Xi Jinping in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (PCCh) that “are appreciated as milestones in the adaptation of Chinese socialism to the particularities national and current times”.
“We are convinced that under your leadership, the Communist Party and the Chinese people will continue to make new achievements in building socialism in the new era.”
He recalled that, as Xi himself has expressed, China and Cuba “are good friends, good partners and good brothers.”
He also stressed the “invariable will” to continue promoting – together with the Chinese leader – “the political orientation” between the “two Parties, governments and peoples, based on friendship and brotherhood that will continue to be strengthened and perfected.”
Díaz-Canel has previously highlighted the “close friendship” that unites his country with China, as well as its “historical roots”, with “a long-term vision”, “high priority” and “a benchmark for cooperation between two socialist countries and in development.
The Asian country is currently one of the main political allies of the Island and is among its most important trading partners in areas such as light and pharmaceutical industries, the modernization of telecommunications and the electronics industry, tourism, biotechnology and Health services.
Xi was re-elected this Sunday for a third term as general secretary of the CPC and also to chair the party’s Central Military Commission. The new leadership of the PCCh does not have a single woman, which marks a setback in the Chinese power elite, where the female presence was already testimonial in the previous leadership.
For the first time in 20 years, no women are among the new members of the Politburo, which has been reduced in size from 25 to 24 members.
No woman has succeeded Sun Chunlan in the Political Bureau after her retirement at the age of 72 from that body, in which she remained the highest-ranking woman in the CCP.
In addition, despite the fact that the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong proclaimed that women “hold up half the sky”, the Politburo Standing Committee, the summit of seven leaders, remains one more cycle without a female presence, as has happened since the beginning of its existence. .
No woman has succeeded Sun Chunlan in the Political Bureau after his retirement at the age of 72 from that organization, in which he remained the highest-ranking woman in the CCP, 28% of whose 95 million members are women.
Since 2020, as vice president, Sun has gained prominence by being in charge of health: she has been the visible face of the “zero covid” policy, consisting of border controls, isolation of all those infected and their close contacts, and confinements and PCR tests where there are positive
His visits to cities affected by outbreaks were usually followed by confinements imposed by the authorities, urged by Sun.
Thus, no name is added to the short list of women who have managed to gain access to the Politburo. In the decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949), some wives of revolutionary leaders such as Jiang Qing, Mao’s spouse, or Deng Yingchao, of former Vice Premier Zhou Enlai, figured in the body of power.
Sun’s predecessor was Liu Yandong, who entered the ranks in 2007 and whose possible historic entry into the Standing Committee in 2012 was speculated on without actually taking place, marking the Politburo as the ceiling of Chinese women in politics.
In recent hours, the absence of women in the Politburo has become an untouchable issue on the Weibo social network, which exercised strict control of content in general during the 20th Congress and which does not offer any recent results for the search “Women in the Politburo “.
The absence of women in the Politburo became an untouchable issue in the last few hours on the Weibo social network, which exercised strict control of content in general during the XX Congress
Some women have resorted to foreign networks blocked in China such as Twitter: “We all know that in the Chinese bureaucracy there has never been equality and that, if women agreed, it would cease to be the men’s game that it has always been.”
Others play down what they consider to be a mere aesthetic change and ask what difference there would be “between a bandit and a bandit.”
The absence of women in positions of authority contrasts with their extensive participation in Chinese public life, despite still facing discrimination and even violence.
Although the figure has recently decreased, 62% of Chinese women participate in the labor force, a figure higher than neighboring Japan (53%), South Korea (53%) or India (19%), according to the Bank. World, and China is listed as the 39th most egalitarian country according to the United Nations.
In 2015, Chinese women accounted for 25% of company founders and the proportion of women at the helm of new brands operating in Chinese e-commerce reached 40% in 2021, according to CCTV.
Their presence in the business sphere contrasts with the challenges they still face: in the last two years, cases such as the sexual harassment of an employee of the technology giant Alibaba, that of a mother of eight who lived in chains in a rural area in Jiangsu ( east) or the brutal beating suffered by some diners in Tangshan (north) led to outrage and calls for more protection for women.
“It’s hard to make our voices heard,” laments a Weibo commenter, adding, “I feel like I have to do a lot more to get respect from my bosses.”
“It’s hard to make our voices heard,” laments a Weibo commenter, adding, “I feel like I have to do a lot more to get respect from my bosses.”
The lack of female political leadership in China also collides with other territories such as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore, which have or have had respectively Carrie Lam, Tsai Ing-wen and Halima Jacob as presidents.
Despite having instituted quotas in bodies such as the National People’s Assembly (22% of representatives must be women), there will be no women in the Politburo in the next five years, a situation similar to that registered in other communist parties in power.
None of the 15 Politburo members of the North Korean Workers’ Party are women. In that of the Vietnamese Communist Party, there is a woman among 18 components.
The situation is similar in Laos and Cuba: in the Politburo of their governing parties there are two women among eleven members and three among fourteen, respectively.
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