From the “Chinese story” to the fable Vietnamese

Havana, Cuba. – They definitely live from the story. And as, for “bad pay”, they have not worked for Russian fictions, or the Chinese epic, or the “Bolivarian” fantasies of the Alba-TCP, they go where no one supports them (by scammers and liars), to try to revive the old story that Cuba could be the “Caribbean Vietnam.”

Because the trick that these days are invented by the Cuban communists to create, once again, the media illusion that now they will leave the crisis and will apply deep, risky reforms, as they have been promising since the 90s, when they have been promised since the 90s, when they have been promised since the 90s, when Fidel Castro —Enemerico as a hippocritical of private property – he preferred to bet on the complicity of Francoist entrepreneurs, in Spain, and the gangsters and extremists of the left, in Italy, than to the economic experiments of the communist allies of the Far East.

The choice of this “peculiar” European business was not a decision made in the face of the lack of options, nor was it the favorite of the military dome at that time (it was the times of the genesis of what we know today as Gaesa), but it was the most convenient for those who were not willing to allow the existence of a private sector developing to the maximum of its possibilities and capabilities, while the state sector should necessarily be simplified expression.

The latter – and Castroism knows him very well – has been essential for the success of economic reforms both in China and Vietnam, and has been the basis for all other strategies in that “play capitalism” without giving up totalitarianism, the unique party system and the irrevocable character of the political regime, in short, a true “miracle” that has seduced an important part of the Cuban communists since they have news of the Cuban communists since the Cuban communists have been Doi Moi (“Renewal process”, in Vietnam) and the Gaigé Kaifang (“Reform and Opening”) driven by Deng Xiaoping in China.

Even so, both in the 90s and in the most recent, previous and after the thaw of Obama, Castroism, seeking to tender and sleep above all the pro-reform groups within the Communist Party (already certain political sectors in the United States), has used in its favor the deception that it is fully with the idea of ​​rehearsing on the island a series of changes and economic openings similar to those that China and Vietnam implemented in its moment, almost at the same time from when Fidel Castro began to be abandoned to his fate for a Soviet union in the terminal phase.

If we review the official press of the time (90s and until well into the 2000), we will discover a mountain of articles on the matter, as well as numerous economic reports and academic studies suggesting studying, in order to “temper” the Cuban reality, Chinese and Vietnamese experiences.

The same in the alternative and independent press and literature, always coinciding with moments of great tension on the island, the texts on the advantages of copying or adapting those models appear as swarming, but once the crisis is overcome or found an alternative (which in the language of the regime means a “benefactor”) that allows them to delay or postpone the promised “reforms”, such publications decrease, they almost disappear, and both China disappear. Vietnam ceases to be referents of changes, and are confined as theme to the “news” sections (until the Asian fury returns with a new crisis).

In this regard, the two visits were not casual, in 2012 and 2015 (that is, prior and after the normalization of relations with the United States), made to Vietnam by the then vice president of the Council of Ministers Marino Murillo Jorge (to which they allowed to call with all purpose “Tsar of the reforms”), precisely when the regime was interested, merely with propaganda, embaunting, attracting the attention of the White House relating the manida image of Cuba as the “Vietnam of the Caribbean.”

Not only does the headlines of both visits – both in the Cuban press as in the foreigner accredited in Havana and Hanoi – emphasized the “taking of experiences” as the objective of the trips of Murillo Jorge but this, in the conferences he offered, insisted on such purposes as fundamental, which was sending a message similar to the one that these days tries to transmit the delegation of the regime and the press that accompanies it. Although we already saw in the images The place they have given to Miguel Díaz-Canel In public ceremonies: always in the background and outside the frames, as is the Cuban economy with respect to those of the world.

A message, that of Marino Murillo Jorge, whose main objective would be Washington – as without a doubt it is also now, appealing to the businessman who is Donald Trump – and it was precisely because the promise that time was accompanied by the coup of the foundation, in September 2013 (that is, a year after Murillo’s visit to Vietnam), of that white elephant that is the special area of ​​Mariel’s development.

From those to the days that take place, of the promised “reforms”, whether they are Chinese or Vietnamese style, we only know about their setbacks and never of their advances. What seemed to begin to move “in the right direction” with the approval of the first MSMEs in September 2021 (nine years after Murillo traveled to Hanoi “to learn”) and the recognition of the “private property” in the Constitution in 2019, we already know that it was another blow to attract and catch naive, that for the regime it is the same as appropriating money of others, easy and fast by traps and “Chinese tales.”

On all occasions, from Fidel Castro to the Lord “continuity”, everything has been said to “reform” and “change”, to invest and develop, it has been, as we say here, “in the Embullo.”

First, because there is no real will to reform anything and lead to prosperity but to scam, to cheat; And second, because they have destroyed the economy to the point, they have subordinated it in such a way to the extremist ideology of a military elite (and with it they have degraded the national pride and the human condition of Cubans and Cubans at such painful levels) that it is impossible for the country to develop if before a much more drastic, radical political reform is not undertaken, than the economic one.

It doesn’t matter if we share with China and Vietnam the horror of living under totalitarian regimes. Beyond the marked demographic, geographical, quality and quantity of human and material resources, the success of the economic reforms of the communists in those countries has a great component of strong national pride and idiosyncrasy, of tradition, of a sense of happiness and personal prosperity as a fundamental purpose of the individual and collective efforts, something that will never have some reforms in Cuba under a selfish system under a selfish system. Structure, which does not have the credibility demanded by international financial organizations, which hates truly private property, that criminalizes it, which does not hesitate to qualify it as a “necessary bad” and circumstantial, and that it uses it fraudulently as caste privilege.

Beyond military agreements to pretend a strategic alliance, of collection of dollars and donations, rice production in pine Old Chinese story of “The Good Pipa” to Vietnamese, once the Russian version was not liked by Putin, as in Mandarin it was not for Xinping. And is that Díaz-Canel, of which we already listen to his “good” English, is not entertaining and convincing even in Spanish.

But the dismembered, both those of here and those there, either in Miami or in Washington, will end up seeing in the new Tour Asian that “signal” that, although old and worn, has served to pretend that this time, like the others, it is serious for changes and reforms. Just read what they write (rather rewrite) the enthusiasts “reformist” usual.

Even Vietnamese and Chinese (and Russians, and Belarusians) know very well that nothing will happen, that everything that comes from the mouth of the Cuban regime is pure bluff To entertain and get a few dollars and bags of rice, but they pretend they don’t know because, in these times too convulsive, there are interests beyond how purely economical they are worth.