Out of Many, One
BRICS drama for Venezuela, TW's FM in Guatemala & Caribbean, and the Chinese Baha Mar saga in the Bahamas. Plus: Cuba & PRC's tense ties.
Welcome to Chaufa, a China-Western Hemisphere Newsletter by CPSI.
Today’s edition covers October 15 to October 27.
Listen on Spotify or read the full edition below:
The Top 5 Stories:
Russia hosted the BRICS summit, which prominently features both China and Brazil, in Kazan. Brazilian President Lula da Silva did not attend the event due to a recent injury. Leaders from Venezuelan and Bolivia, as well as Cuban ministers, also attended the summit, with Maduro briefly meeting with Xi for the first time since Maduro’s fraudulent election this summer. However, while Cuba and Bolivia were approved as BRICS candidates, Brazil rejected Venezuela’s bid to join the grouping.
Founded in 2009, the BRICS was originally made up of Brazil, China, Russia, India (South Africa joined in 2010). The group expanded for the first time since 2010 last year, and while Argentina was the only Latin American country poised to join the group, President Milei ultimately revoked his country’s plans to join the club at the last minute.
As Cuba faces devastating blackouts, the Financial Times ran a major story on why China has failed to substantially prop-up Cuba’s economy, with the piece suggesting that “Chinese officials have been perplexed and frustrated at the Cuban leadership’s unwillingness to decisively implement a market-oriented reform program.” The frustration has led Chinese companies to cancel a contract for 400,000 tons of Cuban sugar a year.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) visited Guatemala to meet with senior officials, including President Bernardo Arévalo, as well as local businesses. His trip focused on four issues: agriculture, infrastructure, education, and ICT. Lin later traveled to St. Vincent for the country’s 45th independence anniversary celebrations. He will later travel to Belize from October 29-30, as well as St. Kitts and St. Lucia.
At the same time, a Taiwanese cybersecurity delegation went to Guatemala to discuss modernizing the state and enhancing cybersecurity.
The PRC foreign ministry used the visit as an excuse to urge Guatemala to establish formal relations with China and to break off ties with Taiwan.
Officials from the Honduran energy ministry, the National Electric Energy Company (ENEE), and the Electricity Regulatory Commission (CREE) traveled to China to discuss possible new generation, transmission, and energy storage projects.
The trip resulted in an agreement between ENEE and Power China on “104MW Patuca III hydroelectric plant, the completion of the feasibility studies of Patuca II A (150MW) and a study of the entire electrical system of the Central American country.” It also resulted in an agreement with Chinese Windey Energy Technology Group for “an in-depth study of Honduran's potential for wind energy.”
Chinese firms started discussions on the Patuca III plant at least as early as 2012, and Power China started construction on the project in 2015, all about a decade before Tegucigalpa established ties with Beijing. (Xinhua) Because of this, these kinds of energy projects have been central to the Sino-Honduran relationship for years.
A New York judge awarded Bahamas-based firm BML Properties Ltd a $1.6 million judgement against China Construction America (CCA) as part of the long-running Baha Mar hotel dispute. The judge argued that the Chinese firm had “committed fraud beyond any doubt.”
Core Brief
A tense Cuba-China relationship is nothing new
Cuba’s faced a bit of a tough few weeks, with rolling blackouts leaving the country’s food and water supply in doubt. In the midst of all this, the Financial Times story on how Chinese officials are increasingly frustrated with their Cuban counterparts grabbed a lot of attention, with the article in particular noting that the PRC has failed to be a reliable partner in propping up the Cuban economy.
Though political relations between the two nations are quite warm in recent years, with the PRC officially calling Cuba “a good friend, good comrade, and good brother.” However, Beijing’s reticence to fully support the Cuban Communist Party isn’t all that new; rather, it’s been the historical norm for much of the bilateral relationship.
As the first country in the Western Hemisphere to recognize the PRC in 1960, Cuba’s early engagement with China was fairly positive. Symbolic of this friendship, in the early 1960s Fidel Castro was reportedly prone to arriving at the PRC embassy unannounced for Chinese food (El Comandante apparently had a taste for northern Chinese food, especially Peking duck). Aside from this culinary diplomacy, much of the Cuban-Chinese communist cooperation in the early 1960s centered on ideological exchange and sugar-for-rice swaps.
Yet despite these early positive interactions and the Cubans’ embrace of a Maoism-like peasant and guerrilla revolution, within less than a decade Castro and Mao were barely on speaking terms.
One reason for this sharp decline was the Cuban’s desire to provide a distinct theoretical example to LAC Communist movements.1 To say the least, this frustrated their PRC counterparts. The Chinese Communist Party had been at the vanguard of the peasant revolutionary movement for years, so Guevara’s and Castro’s claims to a distinct theory of revolution both alienated and prompted ideological competition with their Asian comrades.
Possibly more important, Castro’s alignment with Moscow soured ties between Beijing and Havana. As the Sino-Soviet split heated up in the 1960s, the richer and more powerful USSR was more aligned with the Castro regime. A trade dispute over the sugar-for-rice swaps that led to the termination of party-to-party ties in 1966 and denunciations of the PRC by Castro (he once called Mao “a senile idiot”) further hurt Sino-Cuban relations.
Because of this, the USSR became Communist Cuba’s main backer through much of the Cold War. Nearly three quarters of Cuba’s trade was with the USSR by the 1980s. The PRC, by contrast, was often named as a foe of the Cuban regime, with Castro condemning Beijing’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam and calling Deng Xiaoping “a sort of caricature of Hitler.”
Relations only recovered in the 1990s after Tiananmen Square massacre isolated the PRC in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and President Jiang Zemin visited the island in 1993. Symbolic of these closer ties, it was also around this time that Castro re-started his habit of popping by the PRC embassy unannounced for Chinese food.
Though obviously relations have improved since the Cold War, Sino-Cuban relations have historically rested on shaky ground. While anemic Chinese investment and tangible support for Cuba isn’t solely due to these long-standing historical issues, it certainly does not help Havana’s cause.
The Roundup
This robust partnership that Jamaica enjoys with China is most evident through our people-to-people connections... Truly, we are out of many, one people”
Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith, per remarks at a banquet
Politics and Security
China donated $7 million in vehicles and security equipment to the Peruvian foreign ministry in preparation for this November’s APEC Leader’s Summit in Lima.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified to the public inquiry on Chinese interference in Canada’selections. He accused several conservative parliamentarians of being involved in foreign interference and revealed that his office had intervened to keep an MP who benefited from Chinese interference off a China-focused committee.
Bolivia and the PRC held the 10th Political Consultation Mechanism Meeting in Beijing, though contrary to the name the meeting largely focused on exporting Bolivian chia seeds, science, technology, and renewable energy.
The governor of the Argentine province of Santa Cruz traveled to Beijing to meet with the president of China Gezhouba Group Company (CGGC), the main shareholder of the controversial Jorge Cepernic and Néstor Kirchner mega-dams, while the mayor of Ushuaia met with China’s ambassador to discuss possible commercial, tourism, and infrastructure cooperation.
Chinese firms had previously sought to establish ports in the southern tip of Argentina, which some have suggested was part of a Chinese strategy to establish a military facility near Antarctica and the Strait of Magellan.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a high-level Brazilian delegation led by Lula’s Chief of Staff, Rui Costa, in Beijing. (People’s Daily)
Investment, infrastructure, and finance
While Brazil’s Agriculture Minister suggested that his country should join China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Lula’s closest foreign policy advisor, Celso Amorim, later said that Brazil wouldn’t seek to officially join the BRI.
Aside from Colombia (which is currently negotiation accession to the BRI), Brazil is one few Latin American countries outside of the initiative.
Suriname’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Albert Ramdin, said that his country would welcome more Chinese investment in the country’s oil and gas sector.
President Milei’s administration announced it would privatize the Argentine Belgrano Cargas rail network, which Chinese companies have invested billions of dollars into. Some observers questioned whether Chinese firms may then ultimately choose to purchase the privatized network.
Trade and Technology
Following through from an MOU signed in 2019, the PRC donated a satellite system worth $3 million to Uruguay to monitor extreme weather events due to climate change. Meanwhile, Chinese firm SpaceSail said it will offering low-orbit internet in Brazil.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum promised to have a “good relationship” with China, even without a free trade agreement, while her ambassador in Washington told investors that the United States was a greater priority for his country than China.
These comments come as the Senate President met with Politburo member and the CCP’s Publicity Department’s head Li Shulei in Mexico City to discuss combatting poverty, technological exchange, and media exchange between Xinhua and the Mexican Congressional Channel.
Chinese and Colombian aviation officials met at the ICAO Global Facilitation Forum in Bogotá to discuss possible direct flights from Beijing to Bogota.
China and Venezuela held a commercial dialogue on October 18 in Caracas as part of Beijing’s ongoing commitment to the Maduro regime. The forum largely discussed Venezuelan seafood and agriculture exports. (CGTN)
Peru and China held the 6th meeting of the Strategic Dialogue Mechanism on Economic Cooperation, where the two sides covered a wide-range of issues, including: “infrastructure, mining, manufacturing and industrial parks, energy, strengthening information connectivity and deepening of strategic integration.”
Taiwan
Paraguay’s president met with a delegation from the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute for North America to discuss possible semiconductor investments in the South American country, while the Paraguayan space agency announced it will sign a new cooperation agreement with Taiwan’s space agency.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed a contract with Taiwanese firm OECC for “a state-of-the-art Acute Referral Hospital at Amos Vale.”
Culture and Society
First Secretary of the National Women's Federation of China and CCP Central Party Committee member Huang Xiaowei sat down with the President of Nicaragua’s National Assembly to discuss gender equality, combatting poverty, and people-to-people exchanges. (CGTN)
Huang later traveled to the Dominican Republic to meet with that country’s Supérate program, as well as various other party and local officials. (CGTN)
Three notable forums were recently held: the People’s Daily held the China-Latin America and the Caribbean Media Cooperation Forum 2024 in Brazil, the China-LAC people-to-people friendship forum welcomed delegations to Xi’an, and the China-Latin America Civilizational Dialogue Forum was held by the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Government of Jiangsu Province in Chile.
The CCP also reportedly invited regional leftist parties to attend a forum in Beijing in early December.
Argentina’s legislature approved an agreement with China signed back in 2018 that would prevent and fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural goods.
China donated $20 million to Dominica to build new housing, with the prime minister saying that the “cash injection will benefit contractors and suppliers of building materials.”
The University of Havana opened a new liaison office in Hangzhou “to promote educational, cultural exchange and economic cooperation between China and Cuba.”
Analysis and Opinion
The Inter-American Dialogue ran a piece on how Ecuador’s debt to the PRC has affected Sino-Ecuadorian relations, with Jiang Shixue, Margaret Myers, and Evan Ellis commenting.
AS/COA ran a piece by Chase Harrison on which Latin American leaders have visited China in recent years.
The Wall Street Journal ran a notable story by Ryan Dubé on illegal and unsustainable Chinese fishing off the Peruvian coast.
The Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times ran two notable pieces: one on how Mexico can benefit from autos cooperation with China, while another by Tiago Nogara argues that Latin America is rejecting the “US’ ‘new cold war’ narrative.”
Following this week’s summit, Ryan Berg, Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Rubi Bledsoe, and Henry Ziemer have a piece at CSIS about why some Latin American countries are looking to join the BRICS group.
That’s it for now, see you again in two weeks!
Make sure you don’t miss the next issue of Chaufa 👇
I didn’t have time to get into it, but Halperin documents that in the years following after the Cuban revolution, the Chinese pointedly refused to refer to Cuba as a successful socialist country. Rather, as an insult to Havana they kept calling the Cuban revolution a “national democratic revolution” rather than a “socialist one.”
Li sobre bacará aqui e achei curioso como o jogo funciona. O texto é bem escrito, dá pra entender sem dificuldade https://booi-cassino.com.br/bacara/