And now, a China health mystery

I don’t doubt that U.S. personnel assigned to our embassy in Havana suffered some kind of harm.

But the Trump Administration’s handling of this matter has seemed political to me. Consider yesterday’s news about a U.S. diplomat in Guangzhou, China who suffered symptoms “very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba,” according to Secretary of State Pompeo.

What was done in response? The State Department issued a straightforward health alert to inform the public about the China incident. It noted that the cause of the diplomat’s symptoms is unknown. The Department did not change its China travel advisory, which tells U.S. travelers to exercise caution due to arbitrary arrests. No U.S. official has referred to “attacks” in China.

The Cuba advisory, on the other hand, is at a higher level on the State Department’s scale – it urges Americans to “reconsider” travel anywhere in Cuba, even though the incidents affected only U.S. diplomats and only in Havana. (Canada saw some of its diplomats affected in Havana; it informed the public but made no similar warning to Canadian travelers.) As in China, the Department has no idea what happened in Cuba, but that doesn’t stop U.S. officials from referring constantly to “attacks” in Cuba. Whereas Cuba’s offer of investigative assistance was treated at arm’s length, Secretary Pompeo announced that our Chinese friends “have responded in a way that is exactly the right response,” and “We’re working together to resolve it.”

Apart from the disparity in numbers, the two situations are similar: communist country, same symptoms, cause unknown. One is being handled normally, with actions that fit the situation and the lack of evidence. Cuba is handled differently because, let’s face it, the Trump Administration has essentially made Senator Rubio the Undersecretary of State for Cuba.

Odds and ends

• The Boston Globe calls for a “new diplomatic agenda with Cuba” beginning with ending “the silly claim, reinstated by the Obama administration last summer, that Cuba remains a ‘state sponsor of terrorism.’”

• Reuters on the search for a partner to expand the Cienfuegos refinery, a project where the Chinese showed interest but have not bought in.

• Diario las Americas gets the first interview with Pedro Alvarez, the former Alimport chief who defected in 2010 and now lives in Tampa.

• “People who don’t believe strongly in immigration, they’ve lost confidence in the greatness of America,” says former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American trying to show his party the light on immigration.  He is profiled in the Washington Post.

• AP’s Andrea Rodriguez on how Venezuela’s Telesur, now on Cuban television 12 hours a day, has changed Cuban’s media mix for the better.

• Tracey Eaton has a redacted version of the classified annex of the Bush Administration’s Cuba transition commission report from July 2006, much of which has been declassified.  You can’t make a full judgment since parts of it are blacked out, but it’s not as interesting as one might expect.  

• In the Herald, from the guy who ran the USAID program that sent Alan Gross to Cuba: Gross’ predicament is all Castro’s fault, if you question the program you are aligned with the Cuban government, and the program has a “measure of tolerance for losses and failed initiatives” in places such as Cuba.  So suck it up, Alan. 

New aid from China

Raul Castro is visiting China, met his counterpart Hu Jintao, and signed eight agreements for loans and assistance to agriculture and other sectors, Granma reports.  Here are stories from Xinhua (English) and Granma. 

His trip also includes a visit to Vietnam.  A note on the April visit to Havana of Vietnam’s communist party chief here.

China ups its energy cooperation

Platt’s: China will deepen its cooperation with Cuba in oil and gas, according to a framework agreement signed during the visit to Cuba of China’s vice president. China is working on the Cienfuegos refinery expansion project, its capital guaranteed by Venezuelan oil revenutes.

The announcement by the Chinese oil company CNPC covers lots of areas of cooperation, explicitly mentioning offshore operations.

(Pictured at right: a Chinese rig on Cuba’s north coast, east of Havana.)

Quotable

“Long after I depart Beijing, future Ambassadors will continue to visit American citizens like Dr. Feng Xue, who was wrongfully convicted of stealing state secrets and is now serving an eight-year sentence in prison far from his family in the United States. They will continue to speak up in defense of social activists, like Liu Xiaobo, Chen Guangcheng and now Ai Weiwei, who challenge the Chinese government to serve the public in all cases and at all times. The United States will never stop supporting human rights because we believe in the fundamental struggle for human dignity and justice wherever it may occur.”

– U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman in an April 6 speech in Shanghai

“The Fulbright Program has already brought more than 3,000 American and Chinese graduate students and scholars to study, teach, and research in one another’s countries. And we will now enhance these exchanges to include master’s degree students and community college faculties. More Americans are now studying in China than in any other foreign country. Our goal is to send 100,000 students to China over the next four years…

[…]

“We want to see robust, open exchanges, and to lay a firm foundation for cultural and educational understanding…Leaders are on the stage for a period of time, but the people endure. And the people’s relationships is what will give China-U.S. relationships a very strong foundation going into the future.”

– Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in remarks yesterday at the US-China Consultation on People-to-People Exchange

Odds and ends

• The last prisoner in Cuba facing the death penalty had his sentence commuted and a new 30-year sentence imposed. The prisoner is a Cuban-American who was convicted of killing a man after landing in Cuba in an armed raid in 1974, AP reports. Granma’s story refers to a 2008 Council of State decision that commuted other death sentences.

• An Italian newspaper reports that Telecom Italia “is preparing to say goodbye to Cuba” by selling its 27 percent share of telecom monopoly Etecsa. (H/t Penultimos Dias.)

• Why is it “updating” of the economic model and not “reform” in Cuba’s official parlance? Juventud Rebelde interviews a many-titled economist whose answer centers around a bonsai tree analogy. My hunch is simpler, and political: “Updating” better fits the argument that the economic model is basically good and just needs to change with the times. “Reform,” on the other hand, could lead to questions about why these changes didn’t come years ago. Just a hunch.

• EFE: Spain’s new foreign minister believes that “the international community should be aware that the best we can do for the island is to support that process of reform through dialogue and greater opening toward Cuba.” In a nice touch, she spoke quietly so as not to wake the Obama Administration.

• The Herald covers this 2008 Wikileaks cable on anecdotes on the Cuban health care system gathered by the U.S. Interests Section’s nurse.

• Someone should tell the CIA that there is NOTHING FUNNY about the leaking of classified material, even if from the State Department. The Agency created WTF, a Wikileaks Task Force.

• Reuters reports that Cuba’s export earnings are up 42 percent, even as sugar production continues to fall, and nickel and cobalt are down too.

• Dow Jones: Angola’s state oil company bought exploration rights in two offshore blocks north of Pinar del Rio.

• Nice comrades: “The governments of Cuba and China have renegotiated Havana’s debt to Beijing, which will also extend new credit to the island at no interest.” (EFE)