Chinese take on bigger role in Cuba

MIAMI — Chinese buses with comfy seats, tinted windows and air conditioning now roll along Cuban roads beside 1950s Ford jalopies.

They join pressure cookers, light bulbs, refrigerators, TVs and bikes in the deluge of Chinese products flooding Cuba.

From exporting appliances to investments in Cuba's nickel and oil, China is becoming a big player on the island — its second-largest trade partner as of September, up from fourth place in 2004, according to Cuba. In November, Deputy Foreign Minister Rafael Dausa put the total bilateral trade for 2005 at $1 billion.

Still struggling to rebound from the breakup of the Soviet Union 14 years ago and the resulting loss of subsidies, Cuba has found new economic powerhouses to rely on.

Venezuela remains Cuba's most generous economic partner — selling it up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day on easy financial terms. In the past five years, China's trade with Latin America has grown at 42 percent annually, reaching nearly $22 billion last year.

Among the key deals with China:

• A month after Cuban leader Fidel Castro announced an oil discovery off Cuban waters last year, the government signed a production-sharing agreement with Sinopec, China's second-largest state oil company.

• After a 12-day tour of Latin America in 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced his country would invest more than $500 million in Cuba's nickel, one of the world's largest reserves.

• The deal 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, Cuba says.

There's a security component to Beijing's interest in Cuba. A Chinese electronic-eavesdropping facility in Bejucal, south of Havana, monitors some U.S. computer traffic and telephone communications, University of Miami professor June Teufel Dreyer told Congress.

While the Soviet Union saw China as its main rival in the communist world, Cuba-China ties were limited. Now, while both countries mention ideology, experts widely agree that for the Chinese, it's all business.

"The Cubans see it as socialist solidarity," said Daniel Erikson, a Cuba expert at the InterAmerican Dialogue think tank in Washington. "The Chinese are looking for return on their investment."