Cuba’s leader to visit China as island battles struggling economy, energy woes
- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel will visit Beijing during tour seen as mission to secure support for crisis-stricken Caribbean nation
- The Latin American country, facing blackouts and hurricane damage, is likely to request debt relief, expert says
Diaz-Canel’s trip is widely seen as a mission to secure economic and energy support from long-time trade and energy partners. China is Cuba’s biggest trade partner and one of its major creditors.
The crisis-stricken Caribbean nation has benefited from write-offs or postponements of its debt payments. China forgave US$6 billion of Cuban debt as part of a major restructuring in 2011, and the Paris Club creditor nations agreed to defer Cuba’s 2021 foreign debt repayment until this year.
During Diaz-Canel’s first stop, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said his country would donate a solar power plant and resume supplying fuel to Cuba to help ease its energy shortages. He also agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of the interest on Cuba’s debt.
Xu Shicheng, a researcher at the Institute of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Diaz-Canel is likely to make similar debt demands during his China visit.
“China will provide Cuba a considerable amount of cash, necessary loans and supplies,” he said. “We will try our best to help Cuba.”
In 2021, total trade volume between the two countries reached US$1.02 billion. China’s exports to Cuba stood at US$576 million, greater than the import volume of US$446 million, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Wang Huiyao, founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank, said Diaz-Canel’s visit would be another significant and necessary step for China to continue its international exchanges.
“China is open to face-to-face diplomacy now,” he said, adding that no Latin American leader has made an official visit to China since the beginning of the pandemic.