Posted on 12/28/2005 4:59:08 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
While the liberal media focus on the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Samuel Alito and the like, Cuba’s Castro government announced recently it will be opening a consulate in Guandong, China, in order to support Chinese trade and investment in Cuba. Just before Christmas, reports from Havana said China extended a “multimillion-dollar loan” to the Castro government as well.
The reports also said Cuban Parliament Leader Ricardo Alarcon and Luo Gan, a member of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, talked about the “excellent political, economic and [Communist] party ties between China and Cuba.”
Alarcon, according to some wire service reports, stressed that the visit by Luo Gan is an expression of the ties that will continue to strengthen.
The latest Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry figures say buses, pressure cookers, light bulbs, refrigerators, television sets and bicycles from China are now flooding the Cuban economy.
The Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry figures also point out that China is becoming a bigger investor in the Communist island. The figures say that as of September 2005, China rose from being Cuba’s fourth biggest trading partner in 2004 to being the second biggest now.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Castro government has had to reach out to China because of the Soviet economic spigot was cut off. It also looks like China will be hanging around in our hemisphere for some time to come.
In an excellent article that ran during Christmas weekend, the Miami Herald reported that the Communist Chinese government plans several projects for massive investments in Cuba that are designed to keep the Castro government going.
''We have never had so many and such important projects,'' Cuban Foreign Investment Minister Marta Loma told the Miami Herald.
The Herald article also pointed out some of the key deals between China and the Castro government:
A month after Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced an oil discovery off Cuban waters early this year, the government signed a production-sharing agreement with Sinopec, China's second-largest state oil company.
The deal involves drilling just a few dozen miles from Key West, Fla.
After a 12-day tour of Latin America last year, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced his country would invest more than $500 million in Cuba's nickel industry. Cuba, which holds one of the world's largest nickel reserves, agreed to send 4,400 tons a year to China.
The deal also included a 10-year postponement of payments on the debt to China that Cuba incurred between 1990 and 1994.
China will sell 1,000 of the Yutong-brand buses to Cuba on easy credit terms, and has already delivered about 200, according to Cuban government announcements.
Why is China investing so much in Cuba? Because China has it eye on the United States. I remember as a reporter in Florida seeing evidence of how China has been doing electronic eavesdropping from Cuba on America, especially on our military channels.
Back in 2001, Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R.) said China already has "two electronic eavesdropping stations in Cuba." Some news reports indicated that great numbers of Chinese are monitoring telephone calls at the electronic espionage facility located in Paseo between 11th and 13th Streets in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana.
The Heritage Foundation in a study about China found that the Castro government has been allowing China to eavesdrop on the United States. The study also found that China is expanding militarily throughout Latin America as well.
The study said in part, “On the military front, China has expanded ties through exchanges. It reportedly has direct military-to-military relations with Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. The PRC [People’s Republic of China] began collaborating with Brazil on spy satellite technology in 1999, providing rocket launch expertise in exchange for digital optical technology that would permit high resolution, real-time imaging. Moreover, access to Brazil’s space tracking facilities could give China the ability to attack U.S. satellites with a variety of technologies currently under development.”
“Perhaps,” the Heritage study continued, “the most fruitful collaboration has been with Dictator Fidel Castro. In 1999, China was reportedly intercepting satellite signals from facilities in eastern Cuba. In 2000, it obtained access to a base outside of Havana to intercept U.S. telephony. In 2001, Russia announced that it would abandon its extensive electronic espionage center at Lourdes. PRC personnel reportedly now occupy it. A February 2004 agreement cloaks such operations under the pretext of technical communications cooperation. In fact, Radio China International signals originate from Cuba, as does interference with U.S. East Coast radio communications and air traffic control, according to Federal Communications Commission complaints.”
I can testify about the Radio China signals because they come in so clear on my short wave radio receiver, it is like you are listening to a local radio station. I remember working in Florida during the late 70s when the Castro government beamed Radio Moscow -- now known as the voice of Russia from Cuban booster stations. I could hear Radio Moscow at night on my car radio as clear as a local station. The Castro government never gives up in trying to shove its Communist ideology down America’s throat, no matter what.
It is obvious that China has its eye on the United States. Unfortunately, we do not hear much about it. I hope America’s intelligence agencies are watching the potential threat.
America must be on the lookout for potential Chinese industrial as well as military espionage.
American companies should quit their heavy investing in China. Hasn’t President Nixon’s “détente” policies toward China and Russia proved that huge economic investments only benefit the dictatorships and not the people. American investment in China by General Motors and other companies has not made things nice and wonderful for the people there and it causes the Chinese government to invest in Cuba and keep its eye on the United States.
If America does not watch what is going on in our backyard we will have conflict instead of democratic reform, we will see a further retrenchment of regimes in both Cuba and China that are run by gangsters and thugs, the world's worst human rights abusers.
This is good news. Trade with Cuba tends to be a one way street.
<< This is good news. Trade with Cuba tends to be a one way street >>
Just like "trade" with "china."
Gee whiz!
Cubans drilling for oil offshore and Iranians building nuclear power plants.
I'm surprised the Socialist Democrat Party of America is not onboard with their freedom-loving brethren! If it's good enough for Castro, it's good enough for Eva Pelosi!!
Ping.
This is a must see search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet&q=cuban+chinese+iranian+connection+biohazard+labs&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=cuban-chinese%20connection%20to%20al-qaida
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet&q=cuban-chinese+training+camps+for+al-qaeda&spell=1
Next China will be positioning nuclear missiles in Cuba, or maybe even a squadron of fighter jets if they see we aren't reacting.
It's time to take Castro out.
And I say, a cruise missile strike on the eavesdropping stations ought to teach China not to play peeping tom.
hey wombatty wobbly wombat!!!!!!!
So Cuba is just an irrelevant country eh?
You should read this and start singing a different tune.
OH MY GOD! Not the vaunted Cuban legions! Hide the women in a children!
So what? Ally yuourself with China all you want. Drill for oil all you want. At the end of the day, millions of Cubans are still getting on rickety rafts and inner tubes to come HERE. What does that tell you?
It tells me that few Cubans, if given the chance, would actually die for Cuba. It tells me that Cuba, that mighty military machine, depends on a country just as disfunctional to feed it and prop it up. It tells me, that should a CHinese/Cuban alliance ever bear fruit, it will quickly be cut off by the US Navy, Invaded by the US Marines and bombed 'round the clock by the US Air Force. And Cubans, unlike most Iraqi's, would activly help us every step of the way.
Let's make the place a suburb of Miami?
Here's hoping Castro is as much of a drain on the Chinese as he was on the USSR.
"Hide the women in a children"
do you mean hide the women AND children?
"Not the vaunted Cuban legions!"
YES, the VAUNTED CUBAN LEGIONS!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!
"It tells me that few Cubans, if given the chance, would actually die for Cuba."
Um, Angola?
"depends on a country just as disfunctional to feed it and prop it up"
yes, and China is propping it up.
"it will quickly be cut off by the US Navy, Invaded by the US Marines and bombed 'round the clock by the US Air Force"
Do we have the will to do this? i certainly hope so.
"And Cubans, unlike most Iraqi's, would activly help us every step of the way. "
While most Cubans hate Castro, they might be threatened/terrified into doing his bidding.
Yes, build some hotels, and let the tourists in!
Hope the Chinese like getting $3 peso notes...
1000 buses? Those buses usually have capacity for 60 people excluding the driver and bus attendants. Thats more than enought to carry 60,000 troops around cuba, smoking some Cigaro. Well El Presidente, It seems you are selling your own country. The chicoms may have their spy bases, But soon they may want an underground bunker, an air base, an military base and then cuba. With its debt, The chicoms have enought to buy cuba.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.