Summer 2010 marked a breakthrough in Cuba's economic reforms, signifying the regime's long belated compromise between its socialist doctrine and the reality of a deteriorating economy. Across oceans, in China, a country that has actually long awaited Castro's change of mind on socialism, a book collecting his words on the justification and perpetuation of such a socialism was being published by a major academic press and promoted in the media. Entitled Kasiteluo yulu 卡斯特罗语录 (Quotations from Fidel Castro Ruz), the book is simply called by many “Castro's ‘little red book’,” a term reminiscent of Mao's time. A more perplexing development amidst discussions on Cuba's ongoing endeavours for reforms happened in early January 2011. China Central Television (CCTV) started broadcasting a documentary series entitled “Focus: Cuba's road towards reforms.” But after the first episode, the programme was called off without any explanation and has remained a subject of speculation.
No Latin American nation has been treated like the Castros' (Fidel and Raul) Cuba in China's ideological development since the late 1990s. Cuba's revolutionary experience in the past and the regime's defiance of major global trends – from retreat of socialism to advancement of neo-liberalism – correspond to and are exploited by a wide range of opinions (sympathetic as well as critical) in China. The Cuban factor facilitates ideological debates in China in many ways, but three subjects seem to be the most important, interrelated to address fundamental dilemmas China has been facing on its road towards market reforms under the party-state. The first focuses on the legitimacy of communist revolution and the direction of economic reforms (whether they help to preserve socialism or lead to capitalism), essentially a response to the global “end of history” discourse in the 1990s. The second may be called “China's lesson for Cuba” versus “Cuba's lesson for China,” an ideological discussion with immediate implications for state policies and everyday life. The third is the critique of neo-liberalism, the post-Cold War global trend that offers a prescription for the socioeconomic deficiencies of state-controlled economies.
People involved in these Cuban-related discussions range from socialist reformist to old and new leftist, Maoist, liberal and anti-neoliberal, up to the CCP leadership who control the ideological forefront but often find themselves pushed by the waves made by groups from below, and down to some Chinese students with life experience in Cuba. In this way Cuba has helped to configure the ideological spectrum in China. As is often the case with such political expediency, however, the projection of Cuba in China, while it does reflect common historical experience and contemporary predicaments between the two regimes, is constructed with misperceptions and misinterpretations that actually reflect and enhance the ideological complexity of current Chinese society.
The “Guevara Controversy”
Cuba began to be involved in China's ideological discussions in the late 1990s, when the shocking effects of the collapse of Soviet communism were still felt, and started by invoking the apparition of Che Guevara. In 1996 and 1997 the discovery of Guevara's remains in Bolivia and the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of his death brought his name back to international headlines. This global media frenzy also affected China. “A knight on the long road of revolution” and “Immortal spirit” were some headlines on the so-called “Guevara fever” in the Chinese media.Footnote 1 The “fever” had more than transient journalist value. It provided the international left an opportunity to reclaim the legitimacy of the 20th-century socialist revolution, which had not only been discredited by the fall of the Berlin Wall in reality and “the end of history” in rhetoric, but also had been called into question by market-oriented reforms in China. The resurgence of leftism had spread to China where a New Left of Chinese variant was emerging in the context of China's engagement in globalization, growing government corruption and social disparity after two decades of reforms. Also in China, there was an equivalent of “the end of history” rhetoric. Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu, two influential philosophers and literary critics, co-authored a book in 1995 entitled Farewell to Revolution: Looking Back at the China of the 20th Century. Taking the disastrous radical revolutions as the most important lesson of 20th-century history, they rejected a revolutionary approach towards solutions for social crisis. Although published overseas, the book was discussed in the mainland and the phrase “farewell to revolution” epitomized the lamentable sentiment about revolution among Chinese intellectuals. It was in this context that Guevara's name came back to China and provoked some passionate ideological debates.
In November 1997, Dushu 读书 (Reading), a leading Chinese intellectual forum in the 1980s and 1990s, published an article (of mine) entitled “Why did Guevara leave Cuba?” Taking a socialist-reformist stance, the article contextualized Guevarism in an international debate in the first half of the 1960s, called then by some Western Marxists as a “cold war in global socialism.” Initiated by the Soviet Union and involving most communist countries, the debate was about the necessity of reforms to loosen the strict Stalinist planned economy and allow some market mechanism and individual incentive. The article revealed how the debate divided the Cuban leadership, questioned Guevara's anti-reformist policies (he was Cuban minister of industry and the director of the national bank), and criticized his “new man” social engineering project as arbitrarily imposing state power on ordinary people. The article was quickly reprinted on 23 December 1997 by Guangming ribao 光明日报, a newspaper with intellectuals and Party cadres as its major readership, taking a full page for international news. Five months later, Dushu published another article under the title “Che Guevara: eternal memory.” Written by Suo Sa, a Latin American literature scholar at the Institute of Latin-American Studies (ILAS) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the article evaded the question of whether Guevara's economic policies were realistic and ignored his anti-reformist stance, but passionately praised him as personifying incorruptibility, justice and self sacrifice. It also established Guevarism as the antithesis of bureaucratization under socialism. Overall, the article was an ardent defence of the communist revolutions of the last century.Footnote 2
The political implication of the debate on Guevara in Dushu's articles was revealed much later by Wang Hui 汪晖, a leading figure in China's New Left since the 1990s and the executive editor of Dushu in 1997. In an interview with a Singapore cultural journal in 2005, Wang emphasized the influence of Dushu in China as a platform for intellectual and ideological debates with a readership that even included Chinese leaders such as Jiang Zemin (the general secretary of the CCP and the president of the PRC) and Zhu Rongji (the premier). According to Wang, the Cubans officially complained to the Chinese Foreign Ministry about the publication of “Why did Guevara leave Cuba?” and Dushu was “under pressure from the Foreign Ministry.” But “when Jiang Zemin read the article, he liked this rightist point of view,” therefore the ministry “could not say any more”; no official measures were taken on Dushu, and Guangming ribao then ventured to reprint the article. But Wang felt obliged to balance out the article's negative implications, so Dushu “quickly published a response from the left, which was much stronger and more powerful. Of course, this time the Cuban embassy was happy.”Footnote 3 Three months later (August 1998), the Cuban embassy hosted a book release ceremony for the author of “Che Guevara: the eternal memory,” and invited a number of Chinese New Left intellectuals to attend.Footnote 4
The “Guevara controversy” happened when the CCP leadership was making market-oriented reforms – which Guevara would certainly oppose – fairly irreversible in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the post-Tiananmen legitimacy crisis. Jiang Zemin had taken a more pro-reformist stand in 1997 when the Party's 15th Congress (September 1997) elevated “Deng Xiaoping theory” to parallel “Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong thought” as the ideological guideline.Footnote 5 Wang Hui said Jiang's attitude “showed the actual direction of Chinese politics at that time.”Footnote 6 China was also promoting its reformist approach to Havana, and CCP leaders might well know that the Cuban leadership was not monolithic about Guevarist socialism. Raul Castro, the second in command among Cuban leaders, was actually visiting China at the time of the “Guevara controversy” in November 1997. In the 1960s, Raul was pro-reformist in the debate on incentives and had a reputation of being pro-reformist again in the 1990s (and ever since). During his visit, called by some a “learning trip” that lasted for more than 20 days, Raul read Jiang's report to the CCP's 15th Congress “six times” and convened many meetings with his delegation to discuss the Chinese experience of reforms.Footnote 7 In contrast to Raul's strong interest in the economic reforms, Fidel Castro had seemed more concerned with the detrimental effects of such reforms to socialism.
Beyond high politics, the “Guevara controversy” facilitated the open divergence between China's New Left and liberals, which reflected conflicting views on China's post-1989 development and to a great extent set the agenda for China's ideological debate in the new century. Wang Hui argued that post 1989, despite the government's claim to maintain “socialism,” Chinese society had increasingly come under the influence of capital and market.Footnote 8 Wang thus provided his diagnosis of the roots of the problems of contemporary Chinese society: capitalism, globalization, marketization and privatization. His argument led to an appreciative re-evaluation of the revolutions of the 20th century, Maoist and Guevarist included. Despite their excessive measures and coarse approaches, they were now seen as part of a long historical struggle against capitalism's grip of the world.
In the meantime, liberal discourse had returned to China in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which created an atmosphere conducive to the critique of Maoist/Guevarist socialism and its legacy. This Chinese liberalism began to assert itself in the mid-1990s in a number of publications as well as in translations and discussions of Western liberal thinkers. Through some Chinese newspapers such as Nanfang zhoumo 南方周末 (Southern Weekend), this liberalism linked itself with a broader society. In contrast to the New Left, it argued that the fundamental cause of China's social problems was an all-powerful state, and the social ills seemingly created by market and globalization could not be comprehended without first recognizing this reality. After all, it argued, it was in such a party-controlled society that did not allow independent institutions to ensure civil rights that capitalism became unfettered and often patronized by political power. It also rejected the New Left's view of Maoist/Guevarist revolution, not only because of its utopian nature but also on the ground that it was such a revolution that left China a legacy of a party-state.Footnote 9
It was under these circumstances that the debate on Guevara brought the Cuban element directly into China's domestic ideological discussions and left some lasting imprints. Often presented as polar reactions to Guevarism, the two Dushu articles have been reprinted in many journals and edited volumes, and widely circulated in the internet. The debate continued to ferment and erupted around 2000, when a political drama named “Che Guevara” drew much broader attention. The play was conceived by a group of leftist scholars and artists in the wake of the “Guevara controversy.” While “Che Guevara: an eternal memory” was credited as inspiration to the troupe, the article “Why did Guevara leave Cuba?” served as an antithesis and even seen as “out of the CIA's mouth,” as the play's music composer put it.Footnote 10 Set in the historical contexts of the 1960s and the 1990s, the scenes of the play flashed back and forth between revolutionary struggles and post-revolutionary mundane reality. Guevara never appeared on stage. Instead, he responded offstage to questions asked by characters on stage representing revolutionaries who narrated his life, enacted scenes of his struggle and responded to today's reality.
Starting with the question “Should Granma set off?” (the title of the first act),Footnote 11 a rhetorical question that rebuffed all criticisms of communist revolutions, the political discussions in the drama went on to include big questions from a trans-historical struggle between the rich and poor. These ranged from the slave rebellion led by Spartacus in Rome and the peasant rebellion led by Chen Sheng/Wu Guang in China in the Qin dynasty to today's global South/North confrontation, capitalism and socialism, globalization, revolution and social justice, and so on. Three issues have attained the most enduring implications. The first is that the play attributed China's current social problems mainly to global capitalism while evading the party-state's responsibilities. The second was its contemptuous rejection of Chinese liberalism, portraying it as parroting “end of the history” complacency in the West and as sycophants living off handouts from Western capitalism through various fellowships and research funds. The third was anti-Americanism: “What Guevara is to American imperialism is what Jesus Christ was to the Roman Empire.”Footnote 12 Such anti-Americanism was embedded in Chinese nationalism. In fact Huang Jisu, the playwright, is also one of the authors of China Can Say No (1996) and Unhappy China (2009), two nationalist best-sellers of the decade.
The troupe sent three tickets to the US embassy in Beijing, inviting them to come to the performance on 8 May, the first anniversary of the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. In the invitation letter, they said they would like to let the Americans listen to “what the Chinese people really think,” implying that the “people” might not agree with the government's handling of the bombing. When the embassy did not send anyone, the troupe declared to the audience that the three reserved seats symbolized an absente reo. They also invited the Cuban ambassador, who came and delivered a speech, applauding the play and the troupe.
Reaction to the play was phenomenal. It was staged in 2000 and 2001 with the troupe touring around the country, and was covered by a special programme on CCTV. Public opinion was polarized as reviews immediately appeared. To document the debate, an edited volume was soon published to include most important discussions under the title Che Guevara: Responses and Controversies – A Red Storm in Chinese Society and the Intelligentsia. The New Left claimed that, while trying “to clarify all pressing contemporary issues,” the play was particularly an “extraordinary rebellion against the ideology of capitalist globalization” and a powerful statement to justify revolution in a time when revolution was vilified.Footnote 13 The liberals dismissed the play's striking pose and rhetoric of revolution and social justice as left-wing fantasy and pretentiousness, “spiritual drug-taking” or merely a smart marketing strategy.Footnote 14 Some pointed to its politically expedient agenda: “all conflicts, anger, and curse were conveniently directed to the other side of the ocean [the Americans].”Footnote 15 But the play's popularity did set off alarm bells for many critics, for whom its revolutionary fanaticism was potentially incendiary, given the extent of social discontent and the cyclical recurrence of violent turmoil in Chinese history.Footnote 16
The implications of the “Guevara controversy” are threefold. First, the discussions joined the global ideological debate on the legitimacy of revolution, and in historical hindsight were apocalyptic. As the numbers of “mass incidents” of popular protest rapidly increase by year, the prospect of a struggle of “the poor against the rich” has loomed larger and no longer needs to invoke Guevara's apparition to legitimate itself. Such a prospect has been openly discussed by radical old and new Maoists and leftists in cyber space (see, for example, Utopia http://www.wyzxsx.com). Second, the discussions helped to draw and project the fault line between the New Left and the liberals in China that would further develop in the next ten years as the Chinese intelligentsia became more divided when facing more social and political problems. Third and perhaps most interestingly, the controversy started an ideological collaboration between China's New Leftists, some Latin-American scholars and Cuba. They share information with forums, publications and public relations opportunities. For example, in 2008, the Journal of Latin American Studies (based in ILAS) published a panel of articles to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Guevara's “return” to China. The authors included Huang Jisu, the military attaché of the Cuban embassy in Beijing, and two Latin American specialists at ILAS. Huang acknowledged that the creation of the drama received “selfless support from the Cuban embassy.”Footnote 17 This ideological collaboration would continue to develop in the new century, as neo-liberalism becomes their common enemy.
“China's Lesson for Cuba” versus “Cuba's Lesson for China”
If the “Guevara controversy” reflected more the interactions between Chinese intellectuals and Cuba, then a dialogue between “China's lesson for Cuba” and “Cuba's lesson for China” reflects a broader spectrum in the Sino-Cuban ideological engagement. There is a “China's lesson for Cuba” because China's economic success justifies a sense of self-righteousness that often forces Cuba to respond. There is also a “Cuba's lesson for China,” although it is less forceful and explicit on the surface. Facing growing socioeconomic and political problems as the cost of a rapid economic growth, opponents of such a growth have exploited the purported merit and virtue of the Cuban system as a foil to address their own agenda. In the meantime the CCP's leadership regards Havana's rejection of political reforms as an international support of their own political conservatism. Yet “Cuba's lesson for China” may also be taken in a negative sense: for the proponents of political reforms, the deplorable condition of the Cuban economy is inseparable from its outdated party-state system which exists in China with almost the same degree of rigidness.
China's lesson for Cuba
From the very beginning, the post-Cold War Beijing–Havana alliance (starting with Castro's endorsement of Beijing's crackdown of the 1989 pro-democracy movement) was entangled with an ideological complex. China attempted to convince Cuba that market-oriented reforms can actually strengthen the one-party regime, but Havana rejected this approach. In this interaction, Castro's personal attitude played a key role. China's reforms presented him with the dilemma between power (China's economic development and its global impact) and ideology (whether China can remain “socialist”). He was amazed by China's economic growth and did as much as he could to secure China's aid to Cuba. But he was very concerned about the prospect of China falling into the same pitfall of reforms that had ruined Soviet communism. From the early 1990s to the 2000s, he repeatedly vowed that Cuba would never allow market to play a decisive role, though from 1993 to 2003 he did allow some experiments with limited reform goals to alleviate economic hardship.Footnote 18 In his inner circle, however, there has been dissent, focused around Raul Castro, regarding “China's lesson.” Since summer 2010, Raul, who replaced Fidel as the head of the Cuban state in 2008, has structurally expanded economic reforms to allow private entrepreneurship, shrink state-run industry and reduce “socialist” benefits, starting with the dismissal of half a million state employees. This development certainly signalled a near-end of the tug of ideological war – we might trace it back to the 1960s – in Havana, although the Cuban government still denies there is any prospect of it adopting a “market economy.”
For many Chinese, the Cuban attitude towards “China's lesson” gives them an alternative way to interpret and clarify China's own approach to the reforms, which often cause debates among the Chinese themselves. When China and Cuba resumed their political alliance, the CCP was caught up in an intraparty ideological debate on “whether the reforms are socialist or capitalist” (xingshe xingzi 姓社姓资). To fight back against the conservatives who were attempting to reverse the economic liberalization, Deng Xiaoping made his famous “southern inspection tour” in 1992. In the same year the CCP's 14th Congress adopted Deng's “socialist market economy” doctrine. Castro was apparently suspicious of the conjunction of “socialism” and “market.” In 1993, when he met Jiang Zemin for the first time in Havana, he spent most of the time urging Jiang to clarify the doctrine. Unable to convince Castro, Jiang had to appeal to a political slogan to show his sincerity as a Marxist: “Only socialism can save China; only socialism can develop China.”Footnote 19 This slogan was then also used in China as the most effective rhetoric to fend off the conservatives. Jiang must have concluded that for Fidel Castro, the collaboration between socialism and market could never be justified solely by economic rationale.
The attitude towards the market seems to be central in China's perception of the Sino-Cuban ideological difference. For Deng, the market economy was not synonymous with capitalism, nor was a planned economy equitable with socialism; both market and plan are economic tools. This doctrine effectively removed the main ideological obstacle to China's reforms.Footnote 20 But many Chinese considered that this obstacle seemed so insurmountable to Fidel Castro that it had become almost a psychological problem. When Castro returned to a more conservative stance around 2003, after a decade of fragmentary and very limited reforms, the Chinese Cubanists expressed their concerns and called the Cuban attitude towards the market “a mindset problem,” in the words of Xu Shicheng, arguably the most senior official scholar of Cuba at ILAS. Xu said that the priority on the Cuban agenda for any further reforms was to remove the fear of the market.Footnote 21
Jiang Shixue, another leading ILAS scholar, raised the question “What can Cuba learn from China” in a paper with that title presented at an international conference. He argued that between China's progress and Cuba's stagnation lay a main difference: China embraced a market economy while Cuba rejected it. There were a number of things Cuba could “learn from China,” but the most important ones were adopting a market mechanism, diversifying ownership and allowing part of the population to get rich first.Footnote 22 Eight years later, when once again comparing China with Cuba, Jiang came to the same conclusion:
Cuba does not allow market economy … Castro said, “some people thought that socialism could be established through capitalist means. That is one of the most serious historical mistakes. I don't want to talk about this topic; neither do I want to do theoretical analysis. But I have numerous examples to prove that those self-claimed theoreticians have failed to comprehend Marx, Engels and Lenin.”Footnote 23
It would not be difficult for perceptive Chinese readers to identify those “self-claimed theoreticians” when Castro was quoted in a Cuba–China comparative study. Even today, after Raul announced his plan for sweeping and structural reforms, Xu Shicheng cautions Chinese readers that it is still too early to assume Cubans have changed their “mindset”: “the Cuban government has not yet mentioned market economy, but these policies may be seen as a step towards it.”Footnote 24
Chinese media often seem too enthusiastic for any evidence of a more market-friendly Cuba. In 2008, after Raul replaced Fidel and became the Premier of the Council of Ministers of Cuba, China's Beijing Youth Daily immediately interviewed the Cuban ambassador to Beijing. The very first question not only showed what many Chinese were most interested in about Cuban politics but also their knowledge about the difference between the Castro brothers: “I know comrade Raul introduced some market mechanism in the early 1990s, when Cuba was facing economic difficulties. Now [since he is in charge], will Cuba accept market economy on its road toward reform?”Footnote 25 The Cuban ambassador politely evaded the question. The stillborn CCTV series in January 2011 on Cuba's road towards reforms under Raul might be a result of the authorities' caution over the sensitive comparison between the Castro brothers.
Cuba's lesson for China
While judgmental and often self-righteous views on Cuba's dogmatic adherence to anti-market ideology seem commonplace in China, Cuba is also mentioned approvingly in some political and socioeconomic discussions that reflect the view that China has more problems or challenges than achievements. First, the CCP leadership is most appreciative of the Cuban party's will to stay in power by any means; after all, the market economy's political goal is to maintain communist party rule. Hu Jintao's comments in 2007 showed the implication of “Cuba's lesson” in Chinese politics at the highest level: “For ideological supervision, we should learn from Cuba and North Korea.”Footnote 26 These comments were widely circulated and interpreted by many as a sign of Hu's staunch conservatism. The CCP's think-tank scholars have run research projects on how the Party should learn from the Cuban party's strategy in maintaining its rule against all odds, often alluding to the CCP's weakness in comparison. Articles under titles such as “The basic practices and experiences of the Cuban communist party in its efforts to fasten the ties with the masses,” “Cuban communist party's strategic measures in consolidating its rule” and “Comparative studies of democratic constructions of the CCP and the Cuban communist party” have been published and circulated on many official websites.Footnote 27
Second, in socioeconomic terms, Cuba's socialist welfare policies are often favourably commented upon in comparison to China's broken system or expensive services, a focus of contemporary social discontent. In a study entitled “What China can learn from Cuba: an evaluation of Cuba's healthcare system,” the author detailed the technical differences between the two countries' healthcare systems and concluded that fairness in healthcare, an indicator of basic social justice, had been significantly compromised in China's market-oriented reforms.Footnote 28 Even authors critical of Cuba's reluctance to reform found it somewhat “superior to China” in this regard. Chinese newspapers and public policy researchers also regard Cuba's medical assistance for many Third World countries to be not only “medical diplomacy” but also evidence of the merit of the Cuban system.Footnote 29
Third, Cuba has given China's old and new Maoists' anti-reform discourse its purported virtues of a classless or egalitarian socialist system. Unlike many New Leftists, who have turned to support the regime in the name of “Chinese characteristics,” the old and new Maoists regard Deng Xiaoping and his successors simply as capitalists. In some major Maoist cyberspace communities such as Utopia (http://www.wyzxsx.com), maoflag (http://www.maoflag.net/html/bbs.html) and redchina (http://redchinacn.com/a/hongseyaowen/hongsehuanyu/2011/0108/707.html), Cuba is seen as the lighthouse in the post-communist darkness. Utopia appreciates the Castro brothers' admiration of Mao, especially Raul Castro who has learned how to sing the “The east is red” in Chinese and has performed it many times for Chinese guests. Utopia sponsored a programme for Estela Bravo's documentary “Fidel: the untold story” (2002) in November 2007 (the film was never officially shown in China). When Castro's “little red book” was published, these cyberspace communities promoted its sale and posted many comments. In a sarcastically comparative way, one commentator quoted Castro's words to disparage China's reality: “‘One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even Cuba's prostitutes now become university students’ (Castro) … But the reality in some countries is quite to the contrary: one of ‘XX's’ greatest achievements is that even our university students now become prostitutes.” “XX” was used to evade censorship; it referred to the regime's responsibility for China's pervasive moral decay.
After Raul announced his sweeping reform plan in summer 2010, these Maoists hoped that the Cuban approach will be different from China's, represented in a lengthy essay on Utopia entitled “The Cuban road: the return of socialist planned commodity economy.” It argued that the Cuban economic reforms were aimed at establishing a socialist economy in which public ownership and state plan remained dominant but market was allowed to play some supplementary role. The author reminded readers that to a great extent, this type of economy was similar to China's reforms between 1978 and 1992, defined as “socialist planned commodity economy” by the CCP's 13th Congress, which was “the only correct choice” for socialist reforms.Footnote 30 For the author, the difference between “socialist planned commodity economy” and “socialist market economy” was the difference between socialism and capitalism. After the CCTV cut off the series on Cuba's reforms, maoflag.net posted a lengthy commentary entitled “Why did the CCTV cut off the series ‘Focus: Cuba's road towards reforms’?” It asserted that, unlike China, Cuba's reforms had not abandoned socialism and justice:
Take a look at Cuba's reforms and then compare them with China. [In China] we see iron fists breaking rice bowls, selling hospitals, forcing people to relocate; there are 200 million unemployed people, 20 million forced prostitutes, soaring prices for consumer goods; people cannot afford education, healthcare, housing, marriage, having children, retirement, and even funerary cost … [after we compare China with Cuba], is it still not clear why the CCTV had to cut off the series?Footnote 31
Fourth, the more liberal-oriented intellectuals and administrators have also exploited “Cuba's lesson for China,” but for reasons that are opposite to all those above. For them, Cuba's resistance against reforms was evidence of the die-hardism of old communists. Now they praise Raul's bold steps towards market as proof of the inevitability of economic liberalization that is likely to open the door to the possibility for political changes. In an article entitled “What can we learn from Cuba's reforms?” published in a newspaper known for its pro-reform standing in Guangzhou, the author said that what is happening in Cuba repeats China's experience, therefore nothing is exciting. But the belated Cuban reforms can teach the Chinese at least three lessons. First, the market economy has universally proved superior to a planned economy, even if in Cuba and China today there are still people who oppose it and attempt to set back the clock, especially after China was affected by the recent international financial crisis. Second, Fidel Castro has never treated reforms as a fundamental strategy but as measures for temporary relief that only worsened the structural crisis in the long run, and in China this attitude also exists. Third, Cuba had wasted more than a decade and is now forced to take what had been rejected, and similarly China has waited too long in reforming its political structure, at the cost of serious socioeconomic and governance problems evident in mass protest incidents.Footnote 32
“Cuba's lesson” learned in life experience: perspectives of Chinese students in Cuba
The above discussions were ideologically driven and relied on second-hand knowledge about Cuba. On the internet there are accounts provided by Chinese tourists who often deplored the difficulties of everyday life in Cuba and the decay of the old Havana. In 2008, Phoenix TV (Hong Kong-based but licensed to broadcast in the mainland) ran a series on Chinese overseas, including a programme on the Chinese in Cuba. Havana's Chinatown was the largest one in Latin America and was once called “little Paris in the Caribbean” for its economic vitality and cultural diversity, but it drastically declined after the 1959 revolution as the result of socialist nationalization. Many Chinese were shocked to see Havana's shabby Chinatown and impoverished remaining Chinese seniors who lived in almost empty rooms (even though subsidized by the Cuban government) with expressionless stares.
A more empirical point of view might be found in the narratives of life experience in Cuba by some Chinese students (mainly majoring in Spanish and medical science). For obvious reasons, Cuba is not competitive in meeting China's overseas education market, so most of the Chinese students in Cuba are on government scholarships for a short-term stay. In 2006, Fidel Castro himself proposed offering 1,000 fellowships annually (a five-year plan from 2006 to 2011) to Chinese students from China's “mid and west regions” (zhongxi bu 中西部) to stay longer and complete a degree.Footnote 33 In China's geo-socioeconomic context, the “mid and west regions” are perceived as much less developed than the coastal provinces. Given Castro's global fame for his generosity in providing free educational and medical services to many underdeveloped countries, his proposal was not made without an awareness of such a regional difference in China. In addition, many students enrolled in the scholarship programme did not have a very competitive score in college entrance exams. For them, going to Cuba was a choice between a third-tier local college and the opportunity of a tuition-free, study-abroad experience. Studying in Cuba is also a stepping stone, linguistically, for many who go to Spain eventually.
Following Castro's proposal, the “study-in-Cuba” opportunities were promoted in China. Some Chinese provincial newspapers carried reports to popularize the programme. The Oriental International (Dongfang guoji 东方国际), an independent agency serving overseas-bound Chinese students/scholars and affiliated with the official China Scholarship Council, was responsible for advertisement, recruitment, orientation sessions and arrangement for travel tickets.Footnote 34 In Cuba, a new campus of University of Havana was quickly built on Tarara beach, a vacation resort 28 kilometres east of the capital, to accommodate many of the Chinese students, who are not only exempt from tuition fees but also provided free room-and-board by the Cuban government. Chinese official media concisely highlighted privileges the Chinese students received in Cuba which contrasted sharply with the conditions in “real” Cuba: “while electricity and water shortages are often a problem in the area, the air-conditioned student dorm is a huge luxury by local standards.”Footnote 35 In addition, each student receives 200 Euros in monthly subsidies from the Chinese government, which is about ten times the Cuban average monthly salary and a substantial amount even by Chinese standards.
There is no doubt about Fidel Castro's political intent behind such “a huge luxury,” and the Chinese government's subsidy might be a forced “match” to Castro's generosity to encourage the students to stay. But the programme has not been as successful as expected. Admission numbers were much lower than the 1,000 Castro proposed (700 in 2008, for example). More importantly, in an interview in September 2010, a former Chinese ambassador to Cuba admitted that due to “various circumstances” – he listed the US blockade and natural disasters such as hurricanes – the programme had been suspended with more than 500 Chinese students returning to China before they could complete their studies.Footnote 36
But was there anyone else to blame beyond Yankee imperialism and mother nature? While the Chinese official media tend to describe the life of Chinese students in Cuba as happy, hard-working and well-treated, some Chinese students provided alternative critical perspectives online. The harshest criticism came from a girl who had a fellowship but did not stay on the Tarara campus. She posted a lengthy message entitled “About our real life” on a website serving Chinese students in Cuba. Intended originally to be a message to her father, the girl went on to write an essay of 6,700 Chinese characters and publicized it online. For her, the Cuban experience was health damaging and mentally shocking. She suffered from digestive disorders caused by insufficient and irregular food, a shortage of daily commodities, diseases, careless medical treatment, an unsanitary environment in the cafeteria and dormitories, stolen personal items, sexually unacceptable behaviour and very limited internet services. In addition, some of the Cuban administrators and service personnel had a very condescending attitude and treated Chinese students on Cuban scholarships as beggars. “It is like at the end of a play, when all actors return to their true self. I feel funny. A look of a reluctant charity-giver is almost inscribed on their faces,” as she put it. She also attacked Cuban education, saying that the Cubans were very ignorant about the world as a result of their government-controlled “free education.” She felt “cheated miserably” by the promise of “free education” and longed to go back to China.Footnote 37
Her message was commented on by many Chinese students with Cuban experience, their parents and some educational administrators. They did not contradict her account, although some believed that her experience might have been the worst. Some of them mentioned a certain number of drop-out Chinese students. Many comments suggested a common pattern responding to the girl's complaints. First, the scholarship and subsidies cannot bridge the gap between China's and Cuba's living standards (even for Chinese students from “mid and west” regions), as well as students' individual freedom and exposure to the world. Second, the Oriental International was blamed for its “propaganda” in recruitment, which described Cuba as a tropical paradise but told the students very little about the hardship. One comment pointed out the paradox of the state-sponsored programme operated by an independent company whose relationship with the state was never clear. “Between a China of the market economy and a Cuba of the planned economy, you can be sure such a programme will go wrong … I could never conceive of a state-sponsored programme monopolized by an agency and daring to charge so much.”Footnote 38
Fighting Neo-liberalism: Collaboration with an Uncertain Future
In recent years, a discussion on neo-liberalism has added to the Sino-Cuban ideological dialogue, not only making it more directly connected to the international debate on globalization but also establishing a collaboration between Havana and Beijing.
In the early 2000s, as Fidel Castro attempted to hold economic reforms back, the discourse of anti-neoliberalism became his new ideological rhetoric in the international arena. He has spoken numerous times to condemn globalization as a neo-liberal conspiracy or trap that only deepens the gap between rich and poor at both national and global levels and undermines the national sovereignty of underdeveloped nations. This discourse endeavours to make sense of the defence of socialism from the perspective of global North-South relations by exploiting Latin America's experimentation with the neo-liberal doctrine. One example of his early efforts was the convening of the 21st conference of Latin American Consul for Social Sciences (LACSS) in Havana in October 2003, with the theme “The global new hegemony, change and socialism.” The speakers included anti-neoliberal figures such as Noam Chomsky, Perry Anderson, Francisco de Oliveira, Samir Amin and Robert Dahl. Castro attended all sessions during the five days and delivered a five-and-half hour speech at the closing of the conference, in which the Cuban revolution was placed in the context of a global South-North confrontation of the 21st century instead of the Cold War theme of communism versus capitalism.
In China, the discussion on neo-liberalism became an important part of ideological debate as China proceeded towards its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. This was a move to accept international economic order in line with the neo-liberal doctrine, according to its opponents (New Leftists, Maoists and radical nationalists). The debate significantly enhanced the consciousness of global political economy as an inherent part of China's domestic ideological discussions. The rationale of Chinese WTO opponents were similar to their allies' outside China, and Castro's as well, with some moderates claiming that China was just not ready for opening to foreign capital and international competition on that scale. The CCP and official scholars, however, maintained that China must reject the political implications of neo-liberalism, especially those designed to weaken state control over key economic and financial sectors, while remaining engaged in and benefiting from the global economy through WTO. This is the same tactic used by the CCP in its handling of the relationship between market economy and the party-state. Since 2001, contrary to the pessimistic predictions, China's major state-owned enterprises (including financial, banking, energy, transportation and telecommunication) have not only survived the WTO impact but significantly expanded their influence over the national economy: “The state sector advances while private sector retreats” (guojin mintui 国进民退). This has not only brought China international criticism from its trading partners but has also disappointed many liberal-oriented reformists who had expected that entry into WTO would bring a more thorough economic liberalization conducive to political reform. Facing these criticisms, anti-neoliberal discourse has intensified since 2005. It argues that neo-liberalism is not a “natural and historical development,” as its proponents claim, but a “planned and organized ‘political behaviour,’ a protracted ideological indoctrination and imposition of belief” by the West to destroy economic sovereignty of underdeveloped nations.Footnote 39
From the very beginning, the Chinese anti-neoliberal ideology was part of a global campaign. For example, Wang Hui and Han Deqiang (a very vocal New Leftist and radical nationalist) voiced their concerns through international academic and political forums as early as 2003.Footnote 40 Cuba and Latin America are important external sources for this ideology. Xu Shicheng was invited to attend the 21st conference of LACSS and delivered a paper entitled “Neo-imperialism and America's hegemony.” It was the first time that Chinese scholars had participated in such a gathering populated mainly by Latin American intellectuals. Han Deqiang was later invited to participate in another meeting of Latin American scholars in Cuba on the disastrous consequences of neo-liberal policies in Latin America. He argued that China and Latin America were both – to different degrees – victims of neo-liberalism.
Castro's discourse on globalization (opposing a neo-liberal one and advocating a “socialist” one) was introduced in China as an important source of anti-neoliberal ideology in 2005.Footnote 41 During the power transition between the Castro brothers after 2006, China carefully observed whether Cuba would adopt some policies with neo-liberal implications. In 2007, Cankao xiaoxi 参考消息, a Xinhua News Agency daily for international news, reprinted and highlighted a foreign report on Fidel Castro's essay which excluded outright the possibility of a “neo-liberal prescription” for the Cuban economy, calling such policies “an insidious trap” and “poison.” But in the meantime, as the report reminded readers, Raul Castro's government was considering some “structural reforms.”Footnote 42 In 2008, Castro's new biography Fidel Castro: My Life: a Spoken Autobiography, based on 100 hours of interviews by Ignacio Ramonet, was translated by the ILAS and published by the Chinese Social Science Press. Ramonet is internationally known for his anti-neoliberal position and anti-neoliberalism was a major subject in the interview and the book.
A more high-profile anti-neoliberal collaboration occurred in 2010 with the translation of Osvaldo Martínez's book La Compleja Muerte del Neoliberalismo (Neo-liberalism in Crisis).Footnote 43 Martinez is the chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Economic Affairs of Cuban National People's Congress, and director of the Centre of World Economy Investigations of Cuba. He has been very vocal in the international anti-neoliberal campaign and is treated in China as an important source in discussions on global economy.Footnote 44 The book is a collection of his lectures and articles representing the Cuban official view on globalization but articulated in sophisticated academic language rather than propaganda rhetoric. Chinese official media claimed “the book has important implications in China's scholarly discussion on neo-liberalism, and will promote studies of relevant economic theories.” The leadership of CASS – the hub of ideological conservatism – was directly involved in the translation and publication of the book. The vice-president of CASS and the Cuban ambassador wrote prefaces for the book, and its release ceremony was sponsored by ILAS and the Cuban embassy, held together with the opening of the “Conference on Neo-liberalism” in March 2010 (on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Havana).Footnote 45
Discussions at the book release ceremony showed its significance in Sino-Latin American anti-neoliberal collaboration. Wang Weiguang, the vice-president of CASS, said that the book explored the historical roots of neo-liberalism, explained the “unusual vitality” of the doctrine, but also pointed out the road towards socialism through “post-neo-liberalism.” Cheng Enfu, the dean of Academy of Marxism, CASS, argued that the control of education and the media of many countries by multinational enterprises had made criticism of neo-liberalism more difficult, and the book was a timely contribution in this regard. Carlos Miguel Pereira, the Cuban ambassador, praised the performance of the Chinese government in handing the recent financial crisis, taking it as an example of rejecting neo-liberal doctrine that advocated reducing the capacity of the state and government. The ambassador of Venezuela narrated how IMO and the World Bank exploited Venezuela's economic difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s to impose neo-liberal policies on the country, and the disastrous consequences of those policies.Footnote 46 After a survey of the destructive social effect of neo-liberalism on all of Latin America, Mario Alzugaray, counsellor of the Cuban embassy, called upon delegates to find a new, Latin American-based pattern of economic integration to replace the current neo-liberal pattern. Soon afterwards, a lengthy review entitled “Neo-liberalism: myth, crisis, and alternative” appeared in Studies of Marxism (published by CASS). Beyond applauding the theoretical contribution Martinez's book makes to the international discussion, the author drew attention to Martinez's comments on China: “Since the 1950s, no periphery countries have crossed the abyss between them and centre countries – Argentina, Brazil or South-East Asian ‘little tigers,’ none of them. But China is an exception,” although he did not go any further to explain what caused this.Footnote 47
Martinez's lack of analysis of how China has made itself an exception actually reveals the fundamental dilemma of the Sino-Cuban (or Latin American, to some extent) collaboration against neo-liberalism when the high-sounding rhetoric encounters socioeconomic reality. In the areas of the social welfare system, education and health care, and the gap between rich and poor, China is by no means exemplary in anti-neoliberal terms. Behind China's rise is the sacrifice of these public services. For the CCP, the value of anti-neoliberal rhetoric is basically political: to protect giant SOEs as the economic foundation of the party-state and fend off international criticism in the name of economic sovereignty. On the Cuban side, this collaboration also faces uncertainties created by Raul's radical reforms: the impact of massive layoffs of state employees to ordinary people's lives has far exceeded the effects any single neo-liberal policy could have.
Conclusion
This article offers an analytical introduction to some important Cuba-related discussions in China in the last two decades, selected based on their relations to China's own ideological and political development. China's post-Mao social transformation and policy choices have been under international influence, especially from former or current communist countries. The comparisons between China and Russia, Eastern Europe, Vietnam and North Korea always facilitate ideological debates regarding the big question “whither China?” How exactly does this type of international factor interact with the Chinese situation? The Cuban-related discussions may provide an example.
As shown in this article, people of various ideological strips and political interests are engaged in these discussions often in search of direct answers to questions immersed in Chinese society and politics. They do so because Cuba enables some ideological discourse or political advocacy that is otherwise not easy to address. Cuba is chosen not only because it resembles (or used to resemble) China in many ways, but also or even more because it shows how different China is and could be – desirable for some but undesirable for others. As such, there even develops a kind of sentimental attachment to the Caribbean island, which normally Chinese only gives to a few countries that are historically special to it. In this sense, the Cuban revolution and Castro's regime have been constructed as a mirror for China's own reflection. To borrow an Orientalist analysis, just like the “Other” helps define “Self,” as a “socialist Other,” Cuba in Chinese perception often reflects China's own confusions and contradictions, as the regime and the society handle challenges engendered by radical social changes, pursue “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and ponder the global implications of such experiences. It is certain that as long as China's political atmosphere does not allow free and candid discussions on the country's growing sociopolitical problems, Havana will retain its value as China's “Other.”
