Cuba is trapped between US pressure and Chinese apathy

Cuba’s dictatorship has received a reality check. President Trump is determined to make the island free — and this time, there is no superpower to cross the ocean to rescue the communist regime.

The blackouts in Cuba reveal the lies of communism. The island is controlled by the Castro family and a military elite that has been living in fantastic wealth for 67 years at the expense of the people. It is a failed system that the former Soviet Union could not fix, nor could $63 billion worth of free Venezuelan oil. 

China — the undisputed leader in solar panels (accounting for 80 percent of global production) — could put an end to power outages in Cuba in a matter of weeks, yet it chooses not to. It knows that Cuba is a failed state and that this would not be a profitable venture. Consequently, it prefers to send modest assistance that serves only as political propaganda.

This weekend, China shipped 15,000 tons of rice to the island — rations that could last a few months, depending on the vagaries of the communist regime’s corruption and bureaucratic inertia.

Cuba, once the world’s leading sugar producer, has been forced to import this commodity from countries such as Brazil and Colombia. Indeed, Cuban leaders have failed even in this regard, and it isn’t because of any trade restrictions. It is ironic that communists would try to blame a U.S. embargo for Cuba’s woes — this is a tacit admission........

© The Hill