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78
ChengSino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of
the Castro Regime, 1959–1966
✣ Yinghong Cheng
On the evening of 18 October 1964, when Wang Youping, the
Chinese ambassador to Cuba, was about to leave for the day, the embassy’s re
-
ception clerk rushed into the ofªce telling him that Fidel Castro and Emilio
Aragones (a member of the secretariat of the Cuban Communist Party) had
stopped by. Wang immediately ordered the embassy’s cooks to report for duty
and headed to the reception area to greet the visiting dignitaries. Castro
smiled and told Wang: “Today is Sunday, and we would like to have Chinese
food for dinner.”
According to recently published memoirs by Chinese diplomats who
served in Cuba, it was not unusual in the early to mid-1960s for Cuban
leaders—Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Raúl Castro, among others—to
come to the Chinese embassy without warning (and sometimes even through
the back door outside regular business hours) to enjoy Chinese cuisine. Al-
though the Cuban leaders were known for their disdain for “bourgeois for-
malities,” these unexpected visits caused problems for the embassy cooks, who
often had to prepare half-cooked dishes and store them in refrigerators for
such contingencies. Fidel Castro was especially fond of northern Chinese
dishes such as Beijing duck, and at his request the Chinese government sent
two cooks from the famous Beijing Quanjude Duck Restaurant to the Chi
-
nese embassy in Havana. After dinner, Castro often stayed until the early
morning hours talking incessantly, leaving almost no opportunity for the Chi
-
nese to interrupt him or switch topics.
1
On the evening of 18 October 1964, however, Castro came to the Chi
-
nese embassy for a much more important reason. The leader of the Soviet
1. Wang Youping, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries (Nanjing: Jiangsu Renmin Publisher,
1996), pp. 85–87. When citing books, articles, and journals published in Chinese, the titles are trans
-
lated in English.
Journal of Cold War Studies
Vol. 9, No. 3, Summer 2007, pp. 78–114
© 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
Union, Nikita Khrushchev, had been ousted on 15 October, and Castro was
hoping to take advantage of this development to mediate between the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and the USSR. The Cuban leader was also excited
by China’s ªrst nuclear weapons test, which had taken place only two days
after Khrushchev’s downfall. The unannounced visit that night was just the
beginning of a series of efforts by Castro to improve not only Sino-Soviet rela
-
tions but also Sino-Cuban and Soviet-Cuban relations. Subsequent develop
-
ments showed that Castro’s sudden visit to the Chinese embassy on 18 Octo
-
ber, at the high point of Sino-Cuban ties, marked the start of a drastic
deterioration of relations between Beijing and Havana.
The Sino-Cuban relationship in the ªrst half of the 1960s was an impor
-
tant factor in the world Communist movement. Heavily affected and ulti
-
mately doomed by Sino-Soviet antagonism, the Sino-Cuban relationship
moved from close friendship to deep hostility in 1959–1966.
2
Previous stud
-
ies of Sino-Cuban relations in the 1960s have shed useful light on the major
events, but the majority of these works were written in the 1960s and early
1970s.
3
The ofªcial control of information in both countries forced the au-
thors to rely primarily on ofªcial materials such as public speeches and state-
ments issued by the Communist parties and state organizations, on Western
newspaper coverage, and on some interviews.
This article draws on recently published Chinese materials, especially
memoirs and autobiographical articles written by a special Chinese envoy and
by the ªrst two Chinese ambassadors to Cuba in the early 1960s. Among
other relevant sources are memoirs written by former reporters for the Xinhua
News Agency (XHNA) and by former interpreters who were sent by the Chi-
79
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
2. After 1966, although mutually alienated, the two regimes demonstrated signiªcant resemblance.
Their radical social transformations reached a peak in China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and
Cuba’s Revolutionary Offensive (1968–1970). For a comparison of the two events, see Yinghong
Cheng, “‘Revolutionary Offensive’: The Cuban ‘Cultural Revolution’ and ‘Great Leap Forward,’”
Twenty-First Century, No. 50 (December 1998), pp. 90–99.
3. On China’s relations with Latin America and Cuba in the early 1960s, see Cecil Johnson, Commu
-
nist China and Latin America, 1959–1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970); and Cheng
Ying-Hsiang, Idylle sino-cubaine brouille sino-sovietique (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des
Sciences Politiques, 1973). Cheng’s book deals with the period from 1959 to 1962. Daniel Tretiak’s
Cuba and the Soviet Union: The Growing Accommodation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
1966), analyzes Soviet-Cuban relations in the ªrst half of the 1960s, with adequate treatment of Sino-
Cuban relations as an important part of the context. Tretiak also co-authored an article with Frederick
D’Ignazio, “Latin America: How Much Do the Chinese Care?” Studies in Comparative Communism,
Vol. 5, No. 1, (Spring 1972), pp. 36–46. Other works include Andres Suarez, “Castro between Mos
-
cow and Peking,” Problems of Communism (Washington, DC), September–October 1963, pp. 56–78,
which is probably the earliest piece on the topic; and Ernst Halperin, “Peking and the Latin American
Communists,” China Quarterly, No. 29 (January–March 1967), pp. 111–154. For a relatively recent
study, see Damian J. Fernandez, “Cuba’s Relations with China: Economic Pragmatism and Political
Fluctuation,” in Donna Rich Kaplowitz, ed., Cuba’s Ties to a Changing World (Boulder, CO: Lynn
Rienner, 1993), pp. 17–32.
nese Communist Party (CCP) to Cuba to work for government delegations,
economic representatives, and the embassy.
4
The article explores key issues in
Sino-Cuban relations and in the Beijing-Moscow-Havana triangle from the
spring of 1959, when Chinese and Cuba delegations began to make contact,
to March 1966, when Castro made his most vehement anti-Chinese speech,
marking the complete rupture of Sino-Cuban amity. The article discusses the
growing Sino-Cuban confrontation, Castro’s involvement in the Sino-Soviet
dispute, and the ideological and strategic impact of the split on Cuban poli
-
tics, notably with Che Guevara’s departure from Cuba.
The latest evidence from Chinese and Cuban sources shows that Sino-
Cuban relations were much more important and intimate than previously as
-
sumed in the West. China inºuenced the Cuban revolution ªrst through the
relationship between the CCP and the Cuban People’s Socialist Party (Partido
Socialista Popular, or PSP) from early 1959 to late 1960 and then directly via
state-to-state relations after diplomatic ties were formally established. In the
beginning, the Chinese were anxious to learn about the political nature of the
Cuban revolution (democratic-nationalist or socialist). Even before Castro
publicly declared his party’s commitment to Marxism, the Chinese began to
promote their own model of transformation. After Castro openly allied Cuba
with the socialist camp, the Chinese supported Havana with substantial eco-
80
Cheng
4. The most important materials used in this article are diplomatic memoirs. Zhen Tao, My Seventeen
Years of Diplomatic Career (Nanjing: Jiangsu Renmin Publisher, 1997); Shen Jian, “The Bygones of
My Foreign Missions,” in Liu Xiao, Wu Xiuquan, and Shen Jian, eds., My Ambassador Careers
(Nanjing: Jiangsu Renmin Publisher, 1993), pp. 111–125, a collection of autobiographical articles by
Chinese diplomats who served from the 1950s to 1980s; and Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven
Countries. Zhen was stationed in Havana as head of the Cuban branch of the XHNA from March
1960 to March 1961. Shen was the ªrst Chinese ambassador to Cuba, from December 1960 to spring
1964. Wang was the second Chinese ambassador to Cuba, from May 1964 to May 1969. In all of
these accounts, Cuban-Chinese ties play an important part. I also have drawn on memoirs written by
Chinese journalists and interpreters who served in Cuba. They include Kong Mai, “The Breakthrough
in America’s Backyard: My Journalistic Career in the Early Years of Cuba’s Independence,” in Gao
Qiufu, ed., My Journalistic Careers in the Countries without Ofªcial Relationships with China (Beijing:
Xinhua Publisher, 1999), pp. 111–135 (The title of this article is misleading: “Cuba’s Independence”
actually means “the Cuban Revolution.” Before 1959, the CCP regarded Cuba as a U.S. “colony.”
Later the CCP argued that the Communists had made the country “independent.”) Kong was the ªrst
reporter of the XHNA sent to Cuba in April 1959. I also have used two interpreters’ accounts. Huang
Ziliang, who served in the ªrst Chinese trade delegation to Cuba in July 1960 and was assigned to stay
in Cuba to assist China’s economic representative in Havana, wrote The Rediscovery of the New World:
Zhou Enlai and Latin America (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Publisher, 2004) and three articles (which over
-
lap in content). Liu Jinyan, who was Huang’s wife and worked as a Chinese-Spanish interpreter, also
wrote an article. Wang Mei, a female Chinese Communist cadre who participated in the receptions
held for Che Guevara during his visits to China in 1961 and 1965 and for a delegation of Latin Amer
-
ican Communist parties led by Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Cuba’s economic leader, in November 1964,
wrote “The One Who Lit the Morning Clouds,” People’s Monthly (Beijing), July 1998, pp. 135–142.
In addition to these personal accounts, I have used Wang Taiping, The Diplomatic History of the Peo
-
ple’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, 1957–1969 (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Publisher, 1998), an ofªcial account
of the history of Communist China’s foreign policy written by ofªcial diplomatic historians and as
-
sisted by former diplomats.
nomic assistance. The CCP was willing to provide this aid even though China
itself was still recovering from the devastation inºicted by Mao Zedong’s
Great Leap Forward. Above all, CCP leaders hoped that Castro would remain
neutral in the Sino-Soviet confrontation.
Initial Contacts between Beijing and Havana
Immediately after Fidel Castro’s guerrillas entered Havana at the start of
1959, Mao realized the signiªcance of this momentous political change so
near the U.S. coast. The ofªcial People’s Daily, in an editorial published on 4
January 1959, hailed the Cuban revolution as a victory of a “national demo
-
cratic movement,” and China’s ofªcial Central Trade Unions, Women’s Feder
-
ation, and Association of Youth held a joint mass rally on 24 January to cele
-
brate the political change in Cuba.
5
The CCP’s ofªcial assessment of the
nature of the Cuban revolution remained unchanged until 16 April 1962,
when Castro declared his revolution’s socialist nature. In the absence of any
ofªcial channels between Havana and Beijing (Castro’s new government did
not terminate diplomatic relations with Taiwan until September 1960),
China’s XHNA became the ªrst Chinese government organization to make
contact with Castro’s regime. At a time when China had few embassies and
consulates worldwide, the mission of the XHNA went far beyond journalism.
Kong Mai, a XHNA reporter stationed in New Delhi, was sent to Chile in
March 1959 with a Chinese acrobat team in order to make contact with the
Cuban authorities.
6
In Chile, Kong attended a news conference for a Cuban
journalists’ delegation led by the director of the Cuban national radio station.
Kong met with the delegation head and requested permission to visit Cuba.
The Cuban transmitted Kong’s request to Havana, where it was quickly ap
-
proved with the assistance of the PSP. On 12 April, Kong and Pang Bingan,
an interpreter, arrived in Cuba. The XHNA reporter quickly set to work and
sent out his ªrst news report on 15 April.
7
More important was his meeting
on 17 April with Che Guevara, who helped him to complete the registration
process for foreign reporters in Havana. In December 1959, Cuba ofªcially
approved China’s application for the establishment of XHNA’s Havana
branch, the ªrst such outlet in the Western Hemisphere. The branch dissemi
-
81
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
5. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 489.
6. Kong went to Chile under the auspices of the acrobats’ delegation, not of XHNA. According to
Kong, it would have been impossible for a XHNA reporter to receive a visa to enter any Latin Ameri
-
can country at that time because of the likelihood of U.S. objections. See Kong, “The Breakthrough in
America’s Backyard,” p. 230.
7. Ibid., pp. 230–231.
nated materials reºecting China’s ofªcial policy—materials that were essen
-
tially the Spanish versions of XHNA’s daily reports and commentaries.
In the summer of 1959, Che Guevara traveled on behalf of Fidel Castro
and the 26th of July Movement to a number of non-Western countries, in
-
cluding Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia. Guevara not only sought diplomatic
support for the new Cuban government but also “secretly contacted the Chi
-
nese diplomats in these countries and expressed the hope of developing rela
-
tions with China.” He urged the Chinese to purchase Cuban sugar in the fu
-
ture if Cuban-U.S. economic relations deteriorated. Upon receiving this
request, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai immediately reported it to Mao, who
approved it. Zhou then directed the Chinese embassies in the three countries
to inform Guevara.
8
Meanwhile, in Havana on 13 July 1959, Cuban Armed Forces Minister
Raúl Castro met with Yao Zhen, the head of the Chinese journalists’ delega
-
tion. Castro explained Cuba’s difªcult situation and its hopes of establishing a
close relationship with the PRC. He said that Cuba would gradually sever its
diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of the PRC. But he hoped that even be-
fore diplomatic relations between Cuba and the PRC were formally estab-
lished an “important Chinese cadre” could come to serve in Havana as an en-
voy.
9
This was the ªrst time that the new Cuban leaders sent a clear, direct
message expressing their interest in developing relations with the PRC. Raúl
Castro was probably the most appropriate member of Castro’s inner circle to
send out this signal because he was the only member with overt connections
to the world Communist movement at the time. Raúl Castro had joined the
Cuban Communist Party’s youth organization at Havana University in the
early 1950s (even as Fidel Castro himself was still claiming to be a democratic
nationalist revolutionary) and had attended the World Youth Festival in Soªa,
Bulgaria, in May 1953. This festival was an annual gathering, held on a rotat
-
ing basis in the capitals of the Soviet bloc and attended by Communist and
pro-Communist youth representatives from around the world.
10
The Chinese response to the Cuban overtures was favorable. On 19 Au
-
gust, Mao wrote instructions on the telegram Yao Zhen had sent from Ha
-
vana. Addressing Zhou Enlai and Foreign Minister Chen Yi, Mao wrote:
“Comrades Enlai and Chen Yi: Has this matter [Castro’s request for having a
Chinese representative in Havana] been taken care of? I think we should send
a comrade who is politically very experienced and is at a rank equivalent to
82
Cheng
8. Huang, The Rediscovery of the New Continent, p. 76.
9. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 489.
10. Many of the “festival” participants from non-Communist countries were recruited by Soviet
agents. Whether Raúl Castro had such a connection remains unclear.
minister plenipotentiary or chargé d’affaires, but under the guise of being the
head of the XHNA branch. Let me know if this is appropriate.”
11
To fulªll
Mao’s directive, Zhou Enlai sought a person who could work under compli
-
cated and dangerous circumstances, eventually settling on Zhen Tao, the dep
-
uty director of the secretariat of the CCP’s municipal committee in Shang
-
hai.
12
Zhen had worked as a member of a Communist delegation led by Zhou
in the Nationalist-ruled zone in the 1940s and also had close ties with Chen
Yi when the latter was mayor of Shanghai. In October 1959, Zhen Tao had
received a delegation of the Cuban PSP led by Anibal Escalante, the party’s
executive secretary, when it visited China and Shanghai. Zhen’s deft handling
of his meetings with the Cubans must have impressed his superiors in Beijing.
Zhen was appointed by Zhou as the PRC’s envoy in Havana in January 1960.
Zhen was aware of the importance of his new assignment—he was not only
the PRC’s ªrst government envoy to Cuba but also the ªrst such representa
-
tive in the whole of Latin America (Communist China had no ofªcial rela
-
tions with any Latin American countries at that time).
On 11 March 1960, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi convened an interagency
meeting to discuss Zhen Tao’s post. Prior to the meeting, senior ofªcials from
the Foreign Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ofªce of the State Council, the
CCP’s International Liaison Department (CCPILD, a party organ established
in 1952 to handle party-to-party affairs, especially with Communist parties
that were not yet in power), and the XHNA discussed proposals and ques-
tions. At the meeting, Zhou Enlai emphasized the profound signiªcance of
the Cuban revolution in Latin America and the world, but he also warned
that U.S. intervention in Cuba was likely (a warning that proved well-
founded). He said that Zhen’s mission was to ªnd “opportune moments” to
urge the Cuban leaders to be vigilant and to consolidate the revolution by
adopting ºexible strategies and tactics. The meeting laid out guidelines for
XHNA’s Havana branch, putting it under the supervision of both the Foreign
Ministry and the XHNA headquarters.
The meeting then shifted to discussion of an important technical issue.
Because of Cuba’s long-time exclusive reliance on American facilities and
technology, open-cable communication from Havana had to be sent out
through the U.S.-made communications network even after the revolution.
This channel was obviously inappropriate if the XHNA branch had to com
-
83
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
11. Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong’s Manuscripts since the Foundation of the PRC (Beijing: People’s Publish
-
er, 1996), Vol. 8, p. 465.
12. Huang Ziliang, “The First Case of the Sino-Latin American Friendship,” in Yu Wuzhen, ed., The
Diplomatic Experience of the New China (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Publisher, 1996), p. 82. The CCP’s
Shanghai municipal committee nominated two candidates for the post, the other of whom was Zhang
Chunqiao, who became one of the “Gang of Four” during the Cultural Revolution. Huang, The Redis
-
covery of the New Continent, p. 79.
municate with Beijing about sensitive political matters. Hence, the XHNA
director, Wu Lengxi, and the head of the State Council’s Foreign Affairs
Ofªce, Liao Chengzhi, suggested that Zhen Tao bring its own communica
-
tions and encryption equipment to Havana. But one of the deputy foreign
ministers at the meeting (Zhen’s account does not give the name) disagreed.
He said that arrangements for such matters between China and foreign coun
-
tries required each side’s news agency to use only the communication facilities
provided by the host government. All of XHNA’s existing foreign bureaus sent
out their reports through open channels. Any conªdential communications
would be made either through delegations or through messengers. The dep
-
uty foreign minister also said that the PRC should not risk the capture of Chi
-
nese encryption gear if the United States invaded Cuba. According to Zhen
Tao, the deputy foreign minister’s objections were persuasive to Zhou and
Chen Yi, who decided that the branch should not have its own encrypted
communications equipment. Chen Yi ended the discussion on a bewildering
note, ordering Zhen Tao to bring with him copies of Mao’s “On Protracted
War” (a brochure read by the Chinese Communists in the guerrilla war
against Japan) and to be prepared for possible guerrilla war in Cuba.
13
The fact that the XHNA Havana branch did not have its own communi-
cation facilities surprised Che Guevara. In late April 1960, shortly after Zhen
arrived in Cuba, he was invited to Guevara’s home. In a somber mood,
Guevara told Zhen that intelligence sources pointed to the likelihood of an
imminent U.S. invasion. The Cuban government wanted to inform the Chi-
nese authorities of this danger. Obviously the Cubans were anticipating
China’s support, and Guevara seemed surprised and disappointed when Zhen
told him that he had no way to communicate directly with his government.
Guevara then switched the topic to Zhen’s assessments of the likelihood of an
invasion. Zhen told him that based on XHNA intelligence collection and
analysis, he did not believe that such an invasion was imminent. Zhen’s analy
-
sis proved correct at the time, and Guevara was impressed. According to
Zhen, this meeting forged a bond of trust and friendship between them and
may also have helped Zhen to convince Beijing that the branch must have in
-
dependent communication facilities. The problem was solved in July 1960
when the Chinese deputy foreign trade minister visited Cuba. At Zhou Enlai’s
instruction, he brought secure communications gear to Zhen’s ofªce.
14
One might ask why Zhou and Chen Yi did not send communications
equipment to Havana in the ªrst place if they really thought Cuba was impor
-
tant to China. The answer might lie in China’s attitude toward the Cuban
84
Cheng
13. Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic Career, pp. 6–8.
14. Ibid., p. 16.
revolution at the time. Mao and Zhou had great expectations tempered by
caution and some confusion. The Chinese leaders wanted to make the news
agency’s Havana branch an important post, but they apparently were con
-
cerned about several issues, including the possibility of U.S. military or covert
intervention, which might put an end to Castro’s regime. According to Shen
Jian, the ªrst Chinese ambassador to Cuba, who was dispatched there in De
-
cember 1961, all Chinese personnel in the embassy, including cooks, had to
receive extensive military training and study Mao’s guerilla warfare theory be
-
fore they set off for Cuba.
15
Mao and Zhou were also a bit skeptical about the
nature of the Cuban revolution and wanted to see whether it would move in a
socialist or a nationalist direction. After all, Fidel Castro did not openly pro
-
claim his revolution a socialist one until April 1962, a year after the Bay of
Pigs invasion. The Chinese leaders also wanted to monitor the Cuban govern
-
ment’s concrete steps toward ending its relations with Taiwan. One further
problem was that Mao and Zhou were not entirely sure which institution
would emerge ascendant: Castro’s 26th of July Movement (or the Castroists)
or the PSP. All of these uncertainties contributed to the PRC’s initially cau-
tious approach toward Cuba.
The Nature of the Cuban Revolution
Castro’s 26th of July Movement was a new phenomenon in the world Com-
munist movement. Until January 1959, Castro and his movement had en-
joyed much greater attention in the Western media than in the media of the
Soviet Union and China (neither of these Communist countries had a news
bureau on the island). When Castro and his forces entered Havana, Chinese
leaders and their diplomats and intelligence analysts knew little about him.
During the ªrst two years of Castro’s rule, the Chinese were unsure whether
the Cuban revolution would become overtly socialist in orientation.
The Chinese leaders found that they were dealing with two kinds of revo
-
lutionaries. First were the guerrillas from the 26th of July Movement, which
led the revolution and controlled the government but had no ofªcial ties with
the international Communist camp. The movement had insisted on its non-
socialist and non-Marxist direction from the beginning to win over Western,
particularly U.S., public opinion and to isolate the government of Fulgencio
Batista, which would miss no chance to tie the guerrillas to world Commu
-
nism. Whether Castro was in fact already a ªrm Marxist before 1959 is be
-
yond the scope of this article. Regardless, until 1959 he repeatedly and pub
-
85
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
15. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Missions,” p. 111.
licly denounced socialism and Communism, even though some of his fellow
guerrillas were known to be pro-Communist or even Communist.
16
Castro
maintained this position in 1959 and into 1960, claiming on many occasions
that his revolution was targeted at exploitation, capitalism, and imperialism,
without mentioning the word “socialism.” Although his economic policies in
-
creasingly resembled those of a Communist state, he tried to avoid statements
that would provoke U.S. intervention. For the same reason, Castro’s govern
-
ment avoided ofªcial communications with Communist countries, especially
at high levels, in 1959 and most of 1960.
The other revolutionaries in Cuba were those directly afªliated with the
PSP. The PSP had been known as the Cuban Communist Party from 1925 to
1944 and had established ties with the CCP as early as 1949, when Lazaro
Pena, the party’s chief labor leader, traveled to Beijing to attend the Trade
Union Conference of Asian and Australasian Countries. Blas Roca, the PSP
General Secretary, visited China in September 1956 and was among the
Communist party leaders from around the world who attended the CCP’s
Eighth Congress as guests.
17
The PSP contributed little to Batista’s fall because
of what party leaders construed as the absence of “objective conditions” for a
proletarian revolution in Cuba, a line also espoused by the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the CCP in the 1950s.
18
The PSP realized its
mistake after December 1958 and did its best to integrate itself into the new
regime. To communicate with both the 26th of July Movement and the PSP,
China established two channels: the XHNA branch in Havana, which acted
as a government agency and communicated with the Castroists and Cuban
government before diplomatic recognition was established; and a link be-
tween the CCPILD and Cuba’s PSP.
19
Zhen Tao’s mission, as he was clearly
instructed, did not include any direct dealing with the PSP.
Chinese leaders’ doubts about the nature of the Cuban revolution were
86
Cheng
16. These leanings are evident in the messages exchanged in January 1958 by Che Guevara and Raúl
Castro, two of the major ªeld commanders of the guerrilla army. The letters fell into the hands of the
Batista government after the arrest of the messenger. The letters clearly reveal the Marxist outlook of
the two correspondents and were made public by the government in order to link Castro’s forces with
world Communism. The 26th of July Movement claimed, incorrectly, that the letters were not au
-
thentic.
17. William Ratliff, “The Chinese Communist Domestic United Front and Its Applications to Latin
America,” Ph.D. Diss., University of Washington at Seattle, 1974, p. 120.
18. Some connections between the 26th of July Movement and the PSP existed before 1959. The PSP
sent delegations to visit Castro in the Sierra Maestra and had representatives ensconced with the guer
-
rilla but did not cooperate with Castro’s forces in large-scale actions.
19. Although China’s former diplomats, including former XHNA ofªcials, have been allowed to write
memoirs, former CCPILD ofªcials have largely kept silent. In the case of Chinese-Cuban relations,
the retired diplomats have revealed a considerable amount of information, whereas the former
CCPILD ofªcials have disclosed almost nothing. Consequently, Cuban-PRC state-to-state relations
are easier to discuss than CCP-PSP ties.
allayed by the PSP, which moved quickly after January 1959 to promote so
-
cialism in Cuba and establish links with the world Communist movement.
The PSP helped to establish communication between the CCP and the Cu
-
ban government, reassured the Chinese about the future of socialism in Cuba,
and promoted the Chinese model of socialist transformation for Cuba. The
PSP also played a crucial role when Kong Mai applied for a visa to Cuba from
Chile. The visa application was supported by Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, a se
-
nior member of the PSP Politburo who had maintained close ties with the
Castroists through his secret visits to their encampments during the guerrilla
war. When Kong Mai and Pang Bingan arrived in Havana in April 1959, they
were received by the PSP’s youth organization. The Cuban customs ofªcials,
who were mostly holdovers from the Batista regime, were reluctant to let in
the Chinese envoys and even took away their passports, claiming that they
were illegal immigrants. The PSP, Rodriguez in particular, contacted Che
Guevara, who ordered the customs ofªcial to return the passports.
20
The PSP
also provided Kong with inside information about the complicated political
situations in post-revolutionary Havana. Accompanied by José Louis, a re-
porter for Prensa Latina (Cuba’s ofªcial news agency), Kong visited Guevara
on the ªfth day of his trip. In May, Juan Marinello, the PSP chairman, visited
China. Anibal Escalante, the PSP’s executive secretary, followed him in Octo-
ber. Both of them were guests of the CCP, not the state. The memoirs and
Chinese materials used in this article do not reveal any details about these two
visits, except some vague descriptions such as “consolidating and expanding
the relationship between the two parties.”
The connections between the CCP and the PSP continued to develop in
1960. When Zhen Tao arrived in Cuba in early April 1960 to run the XNHA
branch, he was supposed to communicate primarily with the Cuban govern
-
ment and the Castroists, but he also found himself receiving considerable in
-
formation from the PSP. Anibal Escalante (the PSP executive secretary) met
Zhen at the airport, offering an enthusiastic welcome that overshadowed the
ofªcial one from Cuba’s Foreign Ministry. Escalante’s welcome of Zhen seem
-
ingly reciprocated Zhen’s reception of him in Shanghai half a year before.
Escalante assured Zhen that the PSP would assist him in all aspects of his
business. Two days later, the PSP sent a Mercedes Benz and armed driver to
Zhen. Soon thereafter, PSP General Secretary Blas Roca, who also had re
-
cently visited China, sent a Politburo member to drive Zhen to Roca’s home.
According to Zhen, Roca provided him with comprehensive information
about the Cuban revolution, “including the role of the PSP in the revolu
-
87
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
20. Kong, “The Breakthrough in America’s Backyard,” pp. 230–232.
tion.” Obviously, Roca’s version of the PSP’s role in the revolution and in
post-revolutionary developments was intended to impress Zhen.
21
As relations between the CCP and the PSP continued to develop, PSP
ofªcials continued to stress that their party provided the only assurance that
the Cuban revolution would take a socialist road. In April 1960, Qian Liren,
the deputy head of CCPILD, led a Chinese youth delegation to attend the
Fourth Congress of the League of Cuban Socialist Youth (the PSP’s youth or
-
ganization) and met with Escalante, who was supervising the congress. Zhen
Tao, who attended the meeting, later recalled that Escalante and Qian dis
-
cussed the possibility of uniting three revolutionary forces in Cuba—the PSP,
the Castroists, and the Revolutionary Directorate (Directorio Revolucionario,
DR), a small but active student political organization that participated in the
overthrow of Batista—into a single party, an indication that the Castroists
had become more willing to join openly with Communists. In August 1960,
Wu Xiuquan, a CCP Central Committee member and deputy head of the
CCPILD, led a Chinese delegation to the PSP’s Eighth Congress. With Zhen
Tao accompanying him, Wu met Blas Roca, who told him that “there is a 95
percent possibility that, together with the PSP, Castro will be taking the so-
cialist road.”
22
This statement, combined with the economic policies recently
adopted in Cuba, especially the nationalization of heavy industries and for-
eign businesses, further strengthened Zhen’s belief that the Cuban revolution
was moving in a socialist direction.
The PSP also assisted the Castroists in developing their relations with the
CCP. In November 1960, immediately after the two countries formally estab-
lished diplomatic relations, Guevara visited China in his capacity as leader of
Cuban industry and ªnance. The Cuban delegation included a high-ranking
PSP ofªcial (a Central Committee Secretary), whose name was not released
and who never appeared in public during the visit. Wang Mei of the CCPILD
was assigned to receive this PSP guest. Wang later explained that
at that time, the 26th of July Movement, the PSP, and the DR were preparing to
unify. The PSP’s aim in sending one of its leaders to accompany Guevara was to
advise Guevara on Chinese affairs and to show the Chinese their close tie with
the 26th of July Movement, and of course to demonstrate to the 26th of July
Movement their links with the Chinese in order to enhance their leverage vis-à-
vis the 26th of July Movement. There is no doubt about this intention.
23
88
Cheng
21. Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic Career, p. 19.
22. Ibid., p. 20.
23. Wang, “The One Who Lit the Morning Clouds,” p. 135. This article was written in memory of
Guevara on the thirtieth anniversary of his death.
In a further gesture toward the CCP, the PSP attempted to introduce the
Chinese model of socialist transformation to Cuba. William Ratliff in his
doctoral dissertation emphasized the PSP’s understanding of the similarities
between China and Cuba—from the traditional Marxist perspective, both
countries lacked “objective conditions” for a socialist revolution—and high
-
lighted the party’s efforts to introduce the “Chinese road” as soon as the new
Cuban government was established. At a PSP Central Committee plenum in
January 1959, Escalante praised the political changes led by the 26th of July
movement and called for a transition to socialism with the PSP’s assistance:
“Rather than following the classic revolutionary road, the Cuban revolution
has followed the ‘road’ that begins and develops in the distant countryside
and ªnally envelops the cities.” He noted that Cuba had broken with “pre-
established dogmas and critiques” and that “the vision of Fidel Castro and his
military staff have been raised on high,” but he then stressed that “it is neces
-
sary to recognize the important role played by the PSP in opening the way for
the ‘Chinese road.’”
24
According to Ratliff, the PSP’s introduction of the “Chinese road” was
actually meant to slow down the transformation to socialism under the
Castroists. As he put it, “the Cuban Communists were concerned, and in-
creasingly with good reason, that the Castroists would push ahead too
quickly; the precedent of the Chinese Communists, whose anti-imperialist,
anti-feudal revolutionary credentials could not be doubted, might convince
Castro that the middle class could and should be encouraged to contribute to
the construction of socialism in its early stages.”
25
As early as May 1959,
Carlos Rafael Rodriguez published an article in Hoy (the PSP’s main newspa-
per) praising China as “a historical example” of a country with a proletariat
that worked “in league with” the national bourgeoisie not only in “the anti-
imperialist and agrarian revolution” but also “in the transition to socialism.”
Rodriguez argued that in Cuba, too, “cooperation with the bourgeoisie” was
essential for the time being.
26
Two months later, Blas Roca recalled Mao’s ad
-
vice to him in 1956 about the need for as broad a base as possible for socialist
construction.
27
In August 1960, when Castro began to nationalize “Yankee”
ªrms, Roca said that the policy was correct, but he cautioned that national
capitalism was still “necessary” and “plays an important role” in the Cuban
economy. On 13 September, when Castro began to nationalize Cuban-owned
89
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
24. Ratliff, “The Chinese Communist Domestic United Front,” p. 121.
25. Ibid., p. 122.
26. Ibid., p. 123.
27. Ibid., p. 124.
enterprises, Roca wrote an open letter to Hoy responding to the question “Is
China a socialist regime?” His answer was that China politically was socialist
but economically was not socialist because state-owned enterprises in China
coexisted with privately owned businesses and with ªrms jointly owned by the
state and individuals.
28
At the end of September, as Castro’s nationalization
drive intensiªed, Hoy published a lengthy summery of a China’s People’s Daily
editorial emphasizing the positive role of the national bourgeoisie in socialist
construction. But as Ratliff points out, the PSP’s allusions to China fell on
deaf ears, and by the end of 1960 the PSP had nothing signiªcant left to de
-
fend in China’s actual experience.
The reality of what was happening in China was at odds with the ano
-
dyne depictions in Hoy. Maoist China became “socialist” as the result of a rad
-
ical social transformation from the mid-1950s on. The Chinese Communists,
especially Mao, did not allow the revolution to follow a “nationalist and dem
-
ocratic” path after their 1949 victory, contrary to what they had promised in
earlier decades when they sought to recruit as many supporters and sympa-
thizers for the revolution as possible. Instead, after a number of political and
economic campaigns to consolidate CCP rule in the early 1950s, they em-
barked on a Stalinist transformation in the mid-1950s by socializing most pri-
vately owned businesses and forcing peasants into collective farms and the
People’s Communes, followed by the devastating Great Leap Forward, which
resulted in mass starvation. Given the PSP leaders’ close ties with China and
their familiarity with China’s socialist transformation, they must have known
more about the situation there than the Castroists did. Was the PSP exagger-
ating the importance of the bourgeoisie in China to make their case for a
gradual transition in Cuba? The evidence is ambiguous, but in any case the
dulcet version of the “Chinese road” was openly discussed in Cuba in 1959–
1960 as an alternative path to socialism.
In addition to highlighting China as a model, the PSP sought advice
from the CCP regarding the transition. The PSP sent a copy of its draft con
-
stitution, adopted in October 1959, to the CCPILD. The constitution was
intended to reºect the new circumstances after the revolution and the pros
-
pects for socialist transformation in Cuba. The CCPILD gave a Chinese
translation of the draft to Mao in April 1960. The ofªcial compilation of
Mao’s papers and documents reveals the notes he made in the margins of the
PSP constitution, as well as the original texts of the PSP’s draft on which Mao
made his comments.
29
Mao’s marginal comments indicate that he, and pre
-
90
Cheng
28. Ibid., p. 129.
29. The editor of the volume arranged Mao’s numbered comments in sequential order. For each com
-
sumably the Soviet leaders as well, were fully aware that the Cuban revolution
would likely move toward socialism, assisted by the PSP. Mao evidently hoped
for a gradual and moderate transformation in Cuba, similar to China’s New
Democracy rather than the crash transformation implemented in the USSR
during the Stalin era. Mao believed that the PSP should pursue a united front
involving a variety of social classes instead of an overt one-party regime, and
he also believed that Cuba for the time being should focus on Latin America
rather than siding immediately with the Communist world. These comments
underscored Mao’s reservations about the Cuban revolution. In his view, a
premature socialist transformation would endanger the revolution, and a
hasty decision to join the Communist world would alienate other Latin
American countries. Mao also undoubtedly hoped that if Cuba followed the
“Chinese path,” Castro likely would orient himself more to Beijing than to
91
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
ment, a footnote quoting the corresponding part of the PSP text, sometimes with explanation, is
given. Mao’s most important comments were the following. (1) Mao: “Nationalist capitalists should
be included.” The PSP text: “We must win over the urban petty bourgeoisie, keeping them in the rev-
olution, strengthening cooperation with them, neutralizing the waverers, and cracking down on the
anti-revolutionary elements.” (Mao put a question mark next to this paragraph and pointed out that
the “nationalist capitalists” should be “included.”) (2) Mao: “It should be changed to: The sympathy
of peoples in Latin America, in the socialist camp, and among the oppressed Western peoples.” The
PSP text: The Cuban revolution can count on “the sympathy of the socialist camp, the nationalist
countries, and the American people.” (7) Mao: “Establish a patriotic people’s front of all ethnic
groups, all democratic classes, all democratic parties, all people’s organizations, and the army.” No cor-
responding PSP text exists for this comment. The editors’ explanation reads: “This is Mao’s notes on
the constitution’s “The Rights of Citizens and the Political System” section. (9) Mao: “Should mutual
trade be considered?” The PSP text: “Cuba also should establish relationships with the Soviet Union,
China, and other socialist countries, which will be extremely important to consolidate Cuba’s inde
-
pendence and developing economy. In diplomatic policies, Cuba should take into consideration its re
-
lationship with Latin American countries in terms of unity, friendship, and cooperation.” Mao moved
this last sentence up and put it before the one emphasizing Cuba’s relationship with socialist countries,
indicating that priority should be given to Cuba’s relations with Latin American countries, not the so
-
cialist camp. (10) Mao: “Will foreign banks be conªscated without compensation?” This question was
written alongside a paragraph in the PSP text dealing with nationalization of foreign banks in the fu
-
ture. (11) Mao: “How to explain ‘redemption’ and ‘liquidation’?” This comment appeared next to the
section in the PSP text regarding the nationalization of foreign enterprise in Cuba. The section used
those two terms. (12) Mao: “Should organizing some bigger cooperatives based on the developmental
stage be considered?” This comment appeared next to the section on “Land Reforms” in the PSP text.
(13) Mao: “Problem of small-scale economic freedom, particularly small pieces of private land imme
-
diately adjacent to peasants’ houses.” Here Mao was responding to the “Land Reform” section in the
PSP text, which read: “Cooperatives should oppose individualism, advocate collectivism and the co
-
operative spirit of peasants, and oppose exploitation.” At the time, some CCP leaders and local
ofªcials were proposing economic policies that would allow peasants to develop a certain degree of pri
-
vate production based on individual farm plots in order to alleviate economic difªculties brought
about by the Great Leap Forward. Mao was not in favor of this proposal, but his comments on the
PSP text were neutral. (14) Mao: “What about reversing the order?” Here Mao was suggesting that the
PSP give priority to Latin American countries over the USSR and China as Cuba’s foreign trade part
-
ners, reversing the order of priority in the PSP draft. (15) Mao: “Steel and machinery manufacturing
industry should be added.” Here Mao was responding to the PSP’s industrial plan, which put agricul
-
ture ªrst and the iron and copper industries second. For all of these, see Mao, Mao Zedong’s Manu
-
scripts since the Foundation of the PRC, Vol. 8, pp. 163–167.
Moscow. It is unclear how (or even whether) Mao’s marginal comments were
forwarded to the PSP, but irrespective of that, his advice did little to slow Cas
-
tro’s accelerated course to socialism.
Although the Castroists did not openly proclaim their dedication to so
-
cialism until the spring of 1961, they were consistently more impatient and
radical than the PSP in the drive toward socialism. The PSP’s connection with
world Communism, however, gave it an important role in the new regime. In
July 1961 the Castroists, the PSP, and the DR announced that they were uni
-
fying to form the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (Organizaciones
Revolucionaries Integradas). The name was changed to the United Party of
the Socialist Revolution (Partido Unido de la Revolucion Socialista) in 1963
and, ªnally, in October 1965 to the Communist Party of Cuba (Partide
Comunista de Cuba, or PCC). Although the 26th of July Movement’s per
-
sonnel dominated the PCC Central Committee (Castro was the First Secre
-
tary), most of the leading PSP ofªcials joined the PCC. Escalante, the PSP’s
most active leader with close ties to the Soviet Union, was appointed to the
key post of Secretary for organizational matters, and Carlos Rafael Rodriguez
served as Cuba’s chief economic ofªcial for more than three decades. The
leaders of the PSP may well have cheered their success, but Fidel Castro had at
least as much reason to celebrate. The PSP’s ties with foreign Communist par-
ties enabled the Castroists to communicate with and get support from the So-
viet Union and China without overtly provoking the United States. As soon
as Castro openly declared himself a Communist, he moved quickly to estab-
lish his authority as the only authentic interpreter of Marxism and Commu-
nism in Cuba. Emulating tactics used by Stalin and Mao, Castro strengthened
his hold through purges, removing Escalante on 26 March 1962, only nine
months after the merger. Appearing on a nationally televised news program,
Castro accused Escalante of trying to foster bureaucracy and sectarianism
within the party.
30
As soon as Castro announced his Communist aspirations and established
a dominant role in the Cuban polity, the Chinese authorities moved quickly
to consolidate Sino-Cuban relations and to woo Castro himself. For example,
Chen Yi promptly endorsed Castro’s purge of Escalante.
31
Heroic Cuba, which
was published in Beijing right after Castro proclaimed his Communist loyal
-
ties, lavished praise on the Cuban leader. The book was a collection of articles
92
Cheng
30. Escalante went to Moscow afterward and then returned to Cuba when Castro strengthened his ties
with the USSR in 1965, only to be ousted again in 1968 and sentenced to ªfteen years in prison when
Castro launched his Revolutionary Offensive. Escalante’s fate may be compared with those of the Chi
-
nese Communist leaders who were trained and trusted by Moscow but ousted by Mao.
31. Johnson, Communist China and Latin America, p. 148.
by Chinese journalists and other visitors to Cuba, starting with a portrait of
Castro titled “The Great Helmsman of the Cuban Revolution,” an obvious
allusion to Mao’s own title in China.
32
Sino-Cuban Diplomatic Recognition and Mutual
Assistance
Diplomatic relations between China and Cuba were formally established in
September 1960. On 2 September, Fidel Castro spoke to a crowd of more
than one million people and asked them for “approval” of the government’s
decision to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognize the PRC as the le
-
gitimate representative of China. The crowd voiced its “approval” in a deafen
-
ing chorus lasting several minutes. Historians have been uncertain whether
negotiations between the two countries preceded this action. The Chinese
diplomats’ memoirs indicate that no such talks took place beforehand. Castro
announced the decision spontaneously, although he was certain that China
would not decline his offer.
33
On 9 September, a week after Castro’s an-
nouncement, Zhen Tao was authorized by the Chinese government to iron
out the details of a communiqué with the Cubans. The ªnal text was broad-
cast on 28 September.
Zhen notes that after diplomatic relations were established, his own mis-
sion was completed. Castro, however, had not yet declared himself a Commu-
nist, even though the 26th of July Movement had merged with the PSP and
Castro’s nationalization of foreign and Cuban industries were unmistakably
socialist policies. Zhen left Cuba in March 1961 after helping Shen Jian, the
ªrst Chinese ambassador to Cuba, adjust to the post. Within two weeks after
returning to Beijing, Zhen provided four separate brieªngs on his mission in
93
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
32. Tan Wenrui, “The Great Helmsman of the Cuban Revolution,” in Heroic Cuba (Beijing: Shijie
Zhishi Publisher, 1962), p. 1.
33. Zhen claims that from the time he ªrst met Castro in late April 1960, the Cuban leader made clear
that his government would treat Zhen according to diplomatic protocol. On 2 September 1960, Zhen
and Zhou Siyi (the Chinese trade representative who arrived in Cuba in July 1960 with the Chinese
trade delegation and stayed in Havana thereafter) were present at the rally, with seats near Fidel Cas
-
tro. Zhen and Zhou had been invited to the rally the previous evening but had not been told what
would happen there. After Castro suddenly “asked” the crowd whether Cuba should establish diplo
-
matic ties with China and cut off its links with Taiwan and the crowd responded with loud approval,
Castro exclaimed, “The Chinese representative is already here!” He then walked to Zhen, pulled him
to the podium, and held his hand high while announcing the decision. The XHNA Havana branch
immediately tried to cable this news to Beijing, but, according to Zhen, the United States delayed
transmission for seventeen hours because XHNA was still using the international cable service
(through the United States) to send unclassiªed messages. See Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic
Career, pp. 32–34.
Cuba and presented his analysis of the nature and future of the Cuban revolu
-
tion. His ªrst brieªng was to senior Foreign Ministry ofªcials (though Chen
Yi may not have been present), and his second was to the ministry’s entire
staff. Zheng’s third brieªng was to Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi, and his ªnal re
-
port was to the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress.
On each occasion, Zhen said that although some Chinese diplomats still be
-
lieved that the Cuban revolution was “bourgeois democratic” in nature, he
was convinced that it was socialist.
34
Zhen’s reports were completed during
the ªrst wave of the Bay of Pigs invasion, which prompted Castro to an
-
nounce that he was a Communist and that the Cuban revolution was social
-
ist. In June 1963 China publicly suggested, in a statement titled “Proposal by
the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the
General Line of the International Communist Movement,” that Cuba, al
-
ready a de facto member of the socialist camp, was now a formal member.
35
Because Cuba was the ªrst Latin American country to recognize China
and was also the only Communist country in the Western Hemisphere, Chi-
nese leaders took great care in selecting their ªrst ambassador to Cuba. They
ªnally settled on Shen Jian, who had been serving as ambassador to India, one
of the most important diplomatic posts for the PRC. Shen was chosen not
only because of his diplomatic experience but also because of his background
in foreign intelligence. From 1938 to 1947, he was a Communist spy in the
headquarters of Hu Chongnan, a Nationalist general who was supposed to at-
tack Yanan and capture Mao. Shen and other Communist spies disclosed in-
formation that not only contributed to Hu’s defeat, but also earned Mao the
reputation of a legendary military genius who could predict his enemy’s every
move. Before Shen set out for Cuba, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi gave him orders
similar to those given to Zhen Tao over a year earlier—to understand Cuba’s
situation, to remind Cuban leaders about the danger of U.S. intervention,
and to urge them “to be patient and cautious” in pushing the revolution for
-
ward.
36
After the establishment of Cuban-PRC relations, Chinese economic aid
to Cuba increased and became more open. In November 1960, Che Guevara
led an economic delegation to China, meeting with Mao, Zhou, Chen Yi,
and other Chinese leaders. A treaty signed by Guevara and Li Xiannian,
China’s deputy premier, provided Cuba with a long-term interest-free loan of
94
Cheng
34. Ibid., pp. 47–48.
35. On the gradual change in China’s ofªcial attitude toward the Cuban revolution, as reºected in Peo
-
ple’s Daily and Red Flag, from 1959 to 1962, see Johnson, Communist China and Latin America,
pp. 138–142.
36. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Missions,” p. 111. Also see Wang, The Diplomatic History of
the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 491.
the equivalent of 60 million dollars over ªve years (1961–1965).
37
When a
Cuban trade delegation visited China in February 1963, Zhou told them that
“the loan was just a form of aid. If you are unable to pay it off when it is due,
you can postpone it. If later on you are again unable to pay it, you can post
-
pone it again.”
38
Upon hearing the news, Guevara told his colleagues: “It is
unbelievable there is such a loan in the world: interest-free, no due date, and
even no responsibility for paying it off.”
39
Guevara’s visit also secured a Chi
-
nese purchase of one million tons of Cuban sugar in exchange for rice, the
major item Cuba wanted to obtain from China.
40
To compete with the Soviet
Union, China promised to buy Cuban sugar at the rate ªxed between Cuba
and the Soviet Union. When international sugar prices went up, the Soviet
Union raised its compensation rate from 0.0411 to 0.0611 U.S. dollars per
pound, and China immediately adopted the same rate.
41
In October 1963,
when Cuba was struck by tornadoes, the PRC (whose people were still suffer
-
ing from the disastrous results of the Great Leap Forward) immediately pro
-
vided 5,000 tons of grain, 3,000 tons of pork, and large quantities of medi-
cine, clothing, shoes, and stationery to Cuba. Zhou Enlai and Li Xiannian
personally coordinated this aid and ordered different provinces to make con-
tributions.
According to the ofªcial history of Chinese foreign policy, the cash value
of trade between China and Cuba averaged $150 million annually in the ªrst
half of the 1960s and reached a peak in 1965 of $224 million.
42
By that point,
China was Cuba’s second trading partner (after the Soviet Union), and Sino-
Cuban trade accounted for 14 percent of the island’s total foreign trade.
43
In addition, China provided extensive economic advice to Cuba. Bo
Yibo, the head of China’s Central Planning Committee, wrote an article for
95
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
37. “Facts on Sino-Cuban Trade,” People’s Daily (Beijing), 10 January 1966, p. 4. This article was
given in the form of an interview, though the names of the interviewer and the interviewee were not
mentioned at the time. The Chinese revealed their identity later on after Sino-Cuban relations deteri
-
orated (see below). The interview was reprinted by Peking Review, 14 January 1966, pp. 21–23.
38. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 196.
39. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Mission,” p. 121.
40. Cuba’s per capita rice consumption was much higher than that of the average Latin American
country. Before the revolution, the United States was the main rice provider for Cuba, but because of
the Castro regime’s mismanagement and the imposition of U.S. economic sanctions, rice was rationed
in Cuba beginning in 1962.
41. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 495. According to Wang,
the ªrst Chinese purchase of Cuban sugar (50,000 tons) was made in December 1959, and the second
(500,000 tons) was in July 1960 of sugar diverted from the Soviet Union. China’s third purchase was
made during Guevara’s November 1960 visit. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of
China, Vol. 2, p. 492.
42. Ibid., p. 495.
43. Fernandez, “Cuba’s Relations with China,” p. 19.
Cuba Socialista (the PCC’s main organ, similar to China’s Red Flag)inOcto
-
ber 1963 introducing the Chinese experience with socialist industrialization.
44
PRC ofªcials even ventured to suggest that Cuba change the island’s single-
crop export economy. Zhen Tao began to discuss this issue with Carlos Rafael
Rodriguez, Cuba’s agricultural leader, as early as September 1960. When Ro
-
driguez complained about Cuba’s food shortage, Zhen said he “took the
chance to suggest that Cuban peasants should learn how to grow grains,” in
-
stead of only sugar cane. Zhen told Rodriguez that China’s experience showed
that this was not just an economic issue but a political one as well. Without
enough grain a socialist country could not maintain its independence. But
Rodriguez obviously preferred the idea of “socialist labor division,” an eco
-
nomic doctrine endorsed by the USSR. In Cuba’s case this entailed exports of
Cuban sugar in exchange for food and other necessities from other socialist
states. Zhen went further to introduce Mao’s “Self Reliance” doctrine, but it
did not impress Rodriguez, who suggested that China import more Cuban
sugar and export more rice to Cuba along with other necessities.
45
A similar but more serious discussion took place between Shen Jian and
Guevara in the aftermath of Cuba’s 1963 tornado disaster. Shen suggested
that Cuba cultivate as many crops as possible to achieve self-reliance in its
food supply. Guevara accepted the suggestion and asked Shen for technical
support. Shen immediately cabled Beijing to send rice experts to help the Cu-
bans change their agricultural structure.
46
China’s advice and assistance
stemmed less from any real concern about Cuba’s food production than from
the Sino-Soviet competition. The Chinese authorities understood that the
Cuban economy’s dependence on sugar exports was the main reason for
Cuba’s reliance on Moscow. China’s efforts were in vain, however. Cuba re
-
mained dependent on Soviet potato and ºour exports for the next three de
-
cades.
China also provided Cuba with military support. According to Wang
96
Cheng
44. Bo Yibo, “The Socialist Industrialization of China,” Peking Review, No. 41 (11 October 1963),
pp. 20–23.
45. Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic Career, pp. 21–22. Zhen notes that 25 years later, in 1986,
when he led a Chinese People’s Congress delegation to Cuba, his request to visit a Cuban grocery store
was reluctantly granted, but his host, the head of Cuba’s Foreign Trade Commission, frankly acknowl
-
edged that the food supply in Cuba was worse than in China. When Zhen went to a Cuban grocery
store, he found very little to buy, especially without a ration card. Zhen emphasized that the food
shortages were the result of Cuba’s disregard of his earlier suggestion. Zhen’s claim here is, of course,
fanciful: China solved its food problem in the 1980s not by sticking to Maoist self-reliance but by re
-
introducing non-socialist incentives. In 1986, Zhen met Rodriguez, who wanted to learn more about
China’s economic policies and asked many speciªc questions. In 1991, Rodriquez visited China and
expressed further interest in China’s economic reforms. In the early 1990s, Cuba began to introduce a
few limited economic reforms, especially allowing foreign tourists to visit Cuba.
46. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Missions,” p. 121.
Youpin (the second Chinese ambassador to Cuba, serving from May 1964 to
May 1969), China supplied its most advanced anti-aircraft weapon—multi-
barrel ground-to-air machineguns—to Cuba to strengthen the country’s air
defenses. Cuba’s ªrst hundred pilots were also trained in China.
47
In addition to supplying economic and military help, China sent many
cultural and political delegations to Cuba in the early 1960s. Delegations rep
-
resenting trade unions, the women’s federation, the youth league, artists’ and
writers’ unions, scientiªc organizations, peasants’ groups, circus groups, and
other entities traveled to Cuba. The Chinese performing arts organization
sent 98 of the top Chinese singers and many stage performers, especially from
the Beijing Opera, to Cuba in 1961. The delegation stayed in Cuba for two
months and staged performances in all thirteen provinces. The performances
were enthusiastically received, even those of the Beijing Opera, which is often
considered difªcult for foreigners to appreciate. This delegation and others
from China were warmly praised by Cuban leaders. Press coverage of the
events was extensive, and some were even televised. Delegation members were
invited to participate in mass rallies and perform volunteer work. Zhang
Baifa, Beijing’s model construction worker in the 1950s and 1960s who be-
came deputy mayor of Beijing in the 1990s, joined the Chinese youth delega-
tion in 1961 and worked as a volunteer at a construction site in the Sierra
Maestra. These cultural and political activities helped to foster the atmo-
sphere of revolutionary festival promoted by the Cuban authorities in the
early 1960s to symbolize what they claimed was the popular nature of the Cu-
ban revolution.
48
In return, Cuba sent similar delegations to China. One de-
tail revealed by the Chinese diplomats is that Castro’s eleven-year-old son led
a Cuban children’s delegation to China.
Although Cuba was the main beneªciary of these ties, China also re
-
ceived signiªcant beneªts. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, China was
struggling to achieve oil and energy self-reliance in order to end its depend
-
ence on the Soviet Union. Shen Jian visited Cuba’s oil reªnery right after he
arrived in Cuba. Cuba had been the experimental site for some American
technologies, particularly for oil reªneries and communications. The reªnery
Shen visited was built in 1958, a year before the revolution, with advanced
American technology. Shen requested the blueprints and other data from the
97
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
47. Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries, p. 88. Wang does not make clear whether the
pilots were military pilots.
48. One may assume this was an outgrowth of the “cultural diplomacy” conducted by both China and
the Soviet Union in Latin America in 1959. This “cultural diplomacy” was a source of inºuence in
non-socialist countries without being overtly political. See Frederick D’Ignazio and Daniel Tretiak,
“Latin America: How Much Do the Chinese Care?” Studies in Comparative Communism, Vol. 1, No. 1
(Spring 1972), p. 36. China’s cultural delegations in Cuba were intended to intensify the revolution
-
ary atmosphere in Cuba and expand China’s political inºuence on the island.
Cuban government and received a package of detailed information.
49
The
ofªcial history of China’s foreign relations acknowledges that “China’s ªrst
large-scale reªnery facilities were established with the help of Cuban technol
-
ogy.”
50
China’s drive for energy self-sufªciency in the early 1960s was an im
-
portant theme in China’s propaganda (for example, the legend of the DA
Qing Oil Field in Manchuria, which is said to have been established solely
with China’s own technology, was inspired by the Maoist self-reliance doc
-
trine), but the use of “Cuban” (i.e., American) technology was never men
-
tioned. Another Cuban contribution that was omitted from Chinese propa
-
ganda was some pieces of American missiles. In late December 1960, a U.S.
missile landed accidentally on the eastern part of Cuba. It broke apart but did
not explode. Shen immediately went to the site to observe. Afterward he
urged the government in Beijing to send missile experts to Cuba, who, upon
arrival, were given parts of the missile and allowed to take them back to
China.
51
Cuba between Beijing and Moscow
Throughout the ªrst half of the 1960s, Cuba found itself caught between
China and the Soviet Union. The Cubans sought to remain on good terms
with both China and the USSR for as long as possible in the hope that the
two would someday bridge their ideological divide. Cuba’s ofªcial position in
this regard was reºected in one of Guevara’s statements in August 1963:
The Sino-Soviet quarrel is, for us, a sad development, but because the dispute is
a fact, we tell our people about it, and it is discussed by the party. Our party’s at
-
titude is to avoid analyzing who is right and who is not. We have our own posi
-
tion, and as they say in the American ªlms, any resemblance [presumably of
Cuba to either contestant] is purely coincidental.
52
Cuba’s neutrality was exploited by both Beijing and Moscow, who treated the
island as a propaganda battleground. From 1960 to 1964, China and the So
-
98
Cheng
49. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Missions,” pp. 121–122.
50. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 496. Wang was well aware
that such technologies were not Cuban but American. See also Wang, My Career as Ambassador in
Seven Countries, p. 88.
51. Shen, “The Bygones of My Foreign Mission,” p. 122.
52. Herbert L. Matthews, Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1975), p. 78. Matthews was a senior journalist for The New York Times whose inter
-
view with Castro in early 1958 greatly enhanced Castro’s popularity in the West. In that sense,
Matthews was to Communist Cuba what Edgar Snow was to Maoist China. See Anthony DePalma,
The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times (New
York: PublicAffairs, 2006).
viet Union disseminated propaganda materials in Cuba (largely through the
sale of newspapers and pictorial magazines in Cuban bookstores and the dis
-
tribution of them to government ofªces through the Cuban post ofªce). The
Chinese were much more aggressive, and they often sent such materials di
-
rectly to the homes of Cuban party ofªcials and military ofªcers. The Cubans
did not seek to curtail this propaganda war, but in their own publications they
did not mention the Sino-Soviet debate. When they translated and reprinted
Chinese and Soviet materials, they often omitted the mutual accusations.
As Sino-Soviet polemics intensiªed, Cuba, like the other socialist coun
-
tries, was increasingly forced to choose sides. The Castro regime’s situation
was further complicated by the ideological divisions among its own leaders,
partly mirroring the Sino-Soviet split. Even the statement by Guevara cited
above, while seemingly embracing a position of neutrality, was coy in its allu
-
sion to “our position” and “any resemblance.”
Among the Cuban leaders, Guevara was the most pro-Chinese, and Raúl
Castro and Rodriguez leaned most clearly toward the USSR. This ideological
division gave rise to a Great Debate, as Cubans called it, from 1962 to 1965
over the issue of whether material incentives should be adopted to improve
the economy.
53
This debate echoed the discussions in the Soviet Union about
economic reform in the early to mid-1960s involving senior ofªcials like
Aleksei Kosygin, who advocated greater reliance on market mechanisms, in-
dependent management, and individual incentives. This debate generated a
sympathetic response in most East European countries but was harshly criti-
cized by the Chinese as another example of Soviet “revisionism.” The Soviet
debate gave a boost to reform-minded economic ofªcials in Cuba such as
Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, the head of the Instituto Nacional de Reforma
Agraria; and Marcelo Fernandez, the minister for foreign trade. They seized
this opportunity to blame the Stalinist command economy for Cuba’s eco
-
nomic difªculties. But Guevara argued that state planning, central budgeting,
and leveling of wages were prerequisites for a Communist system. Eschewing
the Soviet proposals, Guevara endorsed the Maoist emphasis on people’s con
-
sciousness and sacriªce reºected in volunteer work and egalitarianism. The
Cuban reformists and Guevarists exchanged their opinions openly through
publications and experimented with their preferred methods within their own
domains.
54
99
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
53. The Cuban economic situation had been deteriorating since 1962, shortly after large-scale state
intervention in the economy began and the major industries and banks were nationalized. The U.S.
embargo aggravated but did not fundamentally cause the situation. By 1962, almost all daily con
-
sumer goods, such as rice, meat, cooking oil, eggs, and chicken, were rationed.
54. For a comprehensive analysis of this debate, see Bertram Silverman, Man and Socialism in Cuba:
The Great Debate (New York: Atheneum, 1971). See also Che Guevara, “On the Budget System of Fi
-
Fidel Castro was not involved in this debate and kept silent from 1962 to
1964. His silence was at least partly attributable to his desire to remain out
-
side the Sino-Soviet polemics. As for Castro’s own view on the issue of incen
-
tives and more broadly on the approaches espoused by China and the Soviet
Union, he was undoubtedly much closer to the Chinese side than the Soviet.
Chinese and Cuban Communism in the 1960s shared some fundamental fea
-
tures that differed signiªcantly from those of the Soviet Union. Among the
similarities were their emphasis on people’s consciousness and dedication
rather than on social and economic circumstances; and their reliance on mass
organization and mass mobilization (often inspired directly by Mao and Cas
-
tro themselves) rather than on bureaucracy and technocracy to solve social
and economic problems.
55
The similarities between Cuba’s Revolutionary Of
-
fensive (1968–1971) and China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) were the
direct result. Another factor that reinforced Cuba’s tilt toward China was Cas
-
tro’s resentment of what he viewed as Khrushchev’s humiliating retreat in the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962, especially Khrushchev’s failure to inform the
Cubans before he struck a deal with President John F. Kennedy. But unlike
Guevara, Castro was much more pragmatic and ºexible and understood the
indispensability of economic assistance from Moscow. Castro therefore was
torn between Beijing and Moscow from 1960 to early 1965. As K. S. Karol
observed: “Castro’s stomach is in Moscow but his heart is in Beijing.”
56
In
early 1965, however, Castro put an abrupt end to the debate on incentives by
stating that the revolution’s task was not to have philosophical arguments. He
evidently was worried about the party’s unity, but his changing attitude to-
ward Moscow and Beijing at the time also contributed to his decision to break
his silence.
100
Cheng
nance,” in Rolando Bonachea and Nelson Valdes, eds., Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1969), pp. 112–136; Che Guevara, “The Cuban Economy,” in Bonachea and Valdes,
eds., Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, pp. 137–148; and Che Guevara, “Socialism and Man in
Cuba,” in Bonachea and Valdes, eds., Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, pp. 155–169.
55. On the similarities between Communist China and Cuba and between Mao and Castro, see the
relevant essays in Carmelo Mesa-Lago, ed., Comparative Socialist Systems: Essays on Politics and Eco
-
nomics (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975). Maurice Meisner, when analyzing the rela
-
tionship between Marxism, utopianism, and Maoism, brieºy mentions the anti-urban tendency
shared by Mao and Castro. Maurice Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism: Eight Essays (Madi
-
son: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), pp. 72–73. For a more recent and comprehensive compari
-
son of the Chinese and Cuban revolutions in the 1960s, see my forthcoming book, Creating the New
Man: From Enlightenment Ideas to Socialist Realities, to be published by the University of Hawaii Press.
See also Yinghong Cheng and Patrick Manning, “Revolution in Education: China and Cuba in
Global Context, 1957–76,” The Journal of World History, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2003), pp. 359–391.
56. K. S. Karol, Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution (New York: Hill & Wang,
1969), p. 304. Karol was a Polish-born, Soviet-educated intellectual who became disaffected with Sta
-
linism and lived in Paris during the 1960s. He made trips to China and Cuba in 1966–1968, in search
of a new Communism. Afterward he provided some stories and observations of Cuban attitudes to
-
ward China and the USSR, as well as comparisons between China and Cuba.
From 1963 to 1965, Castro’s “stomach” (to use Karol’s metaphor) gradu
-
ally came to outweigh his “heart.” An early sign of his leaning toward Moscow
was his lengthy visit to the Soviet Union in 1963 (from 26 April to 6 June)
and his praise of everything he saw there in a speech broadcast on Cuban tele
-
vision upon his return from Havana. The visit indicated that Castro’s prag
-
matic considerations had trumped his resentment of Khrushchev. The fact
that Castro chose Moscow rather than Beijing as the site of his ªrst state visit,
and the unusual length of the trip, gave Chinese leaders an inkling that trou
-
ble lay ahead. According to Zhen Tao, China sent invitation signals to Castro
as early as March 1961, when Zhen complete his work at the XHNA Havana
branch. During a farewell dinner for Zhen at the Chinese embassy, Zhen
asked Castro: “Comrade Premier, when I get back to Beijing, what should I
say if asked by my leaders: When will Comrade Castro wish to visit China?”
After some complimentary remarks about China’s greatness, Castro said: “If I
go abroad, the ªrst country will be China.”
57
Castro’s second visit to Moscow, in January 1964, just nine months after
his ªrst visit, further worried the Chinese. Castro was compelled to visit Mos-
cow by Cuba’s economic plight and was ready to assume “a position that more
nearly approached that of the Soviets.” The Soviet-Cuban communiqué at the
end of the visit contained condemnations of “factionalist and sectarian activ-
ity in the rank of the Communists”—the ªrst time that Cuban leaders had
failed to remain neutral in the Moscow-Beijing dispute.
58
Three months later,
when Shen Jian completed his tenure as the ªrst Chinese ambassador to
Cuba, Castro met him and uttered some words that sounded apologetic and
ominous: “The Sino-Cuban relationship is very intimate and we have a lot in
common....Wehavenocomplaints against China and will always be grate
-
ful for China’s assistance. ...[But]Cuba’ssituation is different from China’s.
We have almost no room for maneuver.”
59
In retrospect, these words appear
to be a signal that Havana was going to change its policies concerning Cuban-
Chinese and Cuban-Soviet relations.
Mao was fully aware of Cuba’s difªcult situation. In March 1964 he com
-
mented on Soviet inºuence in Cuba: “In Cuba they [the Cubans] listen to
half and reject half; they listen to half because they can’t do otherwise, since
they don’t produce oil or weapons.”
60
Shen’s successor as ambassador, Wang
Youping, also acknowledged that “China did everything it could to accom
-
101
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
57. Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic Career, p. 46.
58. Johnson, Communist China and Latin America, p. 160.
59. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, pp. 496–497.
60. Stuart Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), p. 198.
Mao made these comments at a meeting with members of the CCP Central Committee on 13 Febru
-
ary 1964, roughly a month before Castro went to the Chinese embassy to see Shen Jian off.
modate Cuba, but it could not match the Soviet Union in supplying oil, en
-
ergy, and major weaponry.”
61
This was amply shown by China’s policy during
the Cuban missile crisis. The memoirs of Chinese diplomats, journalists, and
translators indicate that China lacked the ability to provide any direct military
and technological support to Cuba during the crisis. Instead, the Chinese em
-
bassy merely prepared for the worst-case scenario—a U.S. invasion and over
-
throw of the Cuban government. According to Shen and Huang Ziliang, the
embassy distributed AK-47 submachine guns supplied by the Cuban govern
-
ment, divided its staff into different groups (command, ªghting, communica
-
tions, and logistics), and ordered the staff to study Mao’s On Protracted War.
Shen emphasized to his subordinates the importance of proletarian interna
-
tionalism and revolutionary morale and sacriªce.
62
At no point did Cuban
leaders ask China for immediate support or even contact the Chinese em
-
bassy. By all indications, the Chinese were simply forgotten by the Cubans
during the crisis.
In mid-1964 Cuba requested that China and the Soviet Union restrain
their propaganda activities in Cuba and reduce their distributions of propa-
ganda materials.
63
Because China had to rely more on propaganda to expand
its inºuence in Cuba, as opposed to the Soviet material presence, this request
put more restrictions on China than on the Soviet Union.
The Turning Point and the Showdown
The turning point in Sino-Cuban relations came with a series of events from
October 1964 to February 1965. On 1 October 1964, Castro, Guevara, and
other Cuban leaders attended the celebration banquet for the Chinese Na
-
tional Day at the Chinese embassy together with more than 1,300 guests.
That same day, the two governments arranged for Zhou Enlai to make a state
visit to Havana in late December 1964.
64
But before the planned visit could
be announced, circumstances dramatically changed.
On 15 October 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power in
Moscow and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. In Castro’s view, Khrushchev not
only was responsible for Cuba’s humiliation in the 1962 missile crisis but was
also to blame for the USSR’s split with China. Castro sensed that, with
Khrushchev out of the picture, Sino-Soviet relations might quickly improve.
102
Cheng
61. Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries, p. 88.
62. Zhen, My Seventeen Years of Diplomatic Career, p. 44.
63. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 497.
64. Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries, p. 84.
With this hope in mind, the Cuban leader paid his unannounced visit to the
Chinese embassy on the evening of 18 October.
During the visit, after partaking of Beijing duck, Castro congratulated
China on its nuclear test, which he said would “give a boost to the Cuban
people in their struggle against U.S. nuclear blackmail.” Castro then came to
his main point: “Now that the Soviet Union has changed its leader, China and
the Soviet Union, as socialist states, have no reason not to mend their rela
-
tions.” He stressed the importance of the Sino-Soviet relationship for the
world Communist movement. Wang Youping realized that Castro was hop
-
ing to mediate between China and the USSR and to gauge China’s attitude
toward the Soviet Union in the aftermath of Khrushchev’s ouster.
Wang Youping conveyed the message to Beijing, but Chinese leaders
showed no interest in Castro’s mediation. A month later, in late November,
Castro convened a Conference of Latin American Communist Parties in Ha
-
vana, the ªrst such continental gathering in Latin America. The communiqué
from the conference stressed two points that must have irritated the Chinese:
ªrst, that “the Meeting demands an immediate end to public polemics” be-
tween Communist parties; second, that “factional activities, no matter what
their source or nature,” should be condemned.
65
The ªrst point is unambigu-
ous, but the second needs a bit of clariªcation. The “factional activities”
might refer either to the pro-Chinese Cuban cadres led by Guevara or, more
likely—because the statement was issued at a multiparty conference—to
China’s efforts to inªltrate and split Latin American Communist parties as
part of the competition with the Soviet Union. By early 1965, China had es-
tablished pro-Chinese factions or organizations within the Communist par-
ties of Brazil, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This de
-
velopment reinforced Castro’s change of attitude toward China. Castro still
saw himself as the indisputable head of the Latin American Communist
movement and as a unifying ªgure within it.
After the conference, a delegation consisting of representatives from nine
Latin American Communist parties, led by Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, visited
the Soviet Union and China. This venture was initiated by Castro to persuade
the Chinese to halt their ideological polemics and other “sectarian activities.”
The delegation met with Mao and other Chinese leaders but left with empty
hands. The nature of the delegation’s trip was only recently revealed by the
Chinese.
66
According to Wang Mei, who was at the reception for the delega
-
tion, Rodriguez was “particularly disappointed” by China’s uncompromising
103
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
65. Johnson, Communist China and Latin America, p. 162.
66. Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 497; and Wang, My Ca
-
reer as Ambassador in Seven Countries, p. 88.
stand.
67
Wang does not provide more details other than a general statement
that China rejected Cuba’s request. But the tensions between the Chinese host
and the delegation actually went far beyond Wang’s discreet account. Accord
-
ing to a Bolivian writer who was well-informed about the delegation’s visit,
Mao was furious during the meeting and accused Castro of being so afraid of
the “two demons”—“imperialism” and the “atomic bomb”—that he accepted
the third demon, “revisionism,” referring to Cuba’s alignment with Moscow.
When a Uruguayan delegate tried to interrupt, Mao became furious. The
Chinese leader argued that he was “speaking in the name of 650 million peo
-
ple,” and he asked the Uruguayan delegate how many he represented. Mao
also exchanged sharp words with Rodriguez.
68
The delegation’s visit was not
made public, but it was a signal to both sides that a drastic change had oc
-
curred in Sino-Cuban relations. It comes as no surprise that Zhou Enlai’s
scheduled state visit to Havana was never mentioned again. Whether the two
sides formally cancelled the visit or just let it fall by the wayside is unclear.
Two months later, Guevara suddenly interrupted his visit to a number of
African countries (as he was preparing his secret guerrilla war in the Congo)
and ºew to China with two other members of the PCC Politburo (Osmany
Cienfuegos and Emilio Aragones, who traveled directly from Havana). The
real purpose of his sudden visit to China was unknown until recently. Accord-
ing to Chinese sources, Castro sent Guevara to China for the same reason that
he sent the delegation led by Rodriguez: to persuade the PRC to make conces-
sions vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. In China, Guevara met Liu Shaoqi, the head
of state, and Deng Xiaoping, the CCP General Secretary, but Mao declined to
see him. Guevara stayed in China from 2 to 9 February but did not succeed in
his mission. According to Wang Mei, who was at the reception for Guevara in
Beijing, the Cuban ofªcial looked grave and declined any arrangements be
-
yond ofªcial meetings. It must have been a difªcult moment for Guevara. He
had been considered a pro-Chinese ªgure among Cuban leaders (and perhaps
that was why Castro asked him to go to China), and he had been regarded as a
critic of the Soviet Union—he was soon to voice his harshest criticism of
Moscow when he returned to Africa from Beijing.
69
Whether he was really
104
Cheng
67. Wang, “The One Who Lit the Morning Clouds,” p. 139.
68. Johnson, Communist China and Latin America, pp. 162–163.
69. Returning to Africa from China in mid-February, Guevara spoke as a special guest at the Second
Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers. Without mentioning the Soviet Union, he at
-
tacked the Soviet notion of “mutual beneªt” in foreign trade, particularly as a requirement for Soviet
economic aid to developing countries and claimed that those who subscribed to this notion were ad
-
vocating the capitalist notion of “the law of value” and serving as “accomplices in imperialist exploita
-
tion.” See Tretiak, Cuba and the Soviet Union, p. 24.
committed to his mission to China—to persuade the Chinese to compromise
with Moscow—is questionable.
70
All of these events—Castro’s sudden visit to the Chinese embassy, the
conference of Latin American Communist parties in Havana, and the dis
-
patch of the Rodriguez and Guevara delegations to China—were indicative of
Castro’s efforts to foster a Sino-Soviet reconciliation in the wake of Khrush
-
chev’s downfall. Evidently, Castro failed to understand the real nature of the
Sino-Soviet quarrel: that it did not hinge solely on the fate of any single leader
in Moscow. Rather, what was at stake was the leadership of world Commu
-
nism, of Marxist revolutions in the developing world, and of different ap
-
proaches toward Communism on domestic matters.
71
Castro may also have
taken China’s rejection of his overtures as a sign of arrogance—a sign that
China regarded small countries like Cuba as insigniªcant. Mao’s demeanor
toward the Uruguayan delegate was clear evidence of such arrogance, and
Castro undoubtedly learned about it from the Cuban members of the delega
-
tion. In addition, China’s inªltration of the Latin American Communist
movement further aggravated relations between Beijing and Havana. This se-
ries of developments from October 1964 to February 1965 pushed Castro
further into Moscow’s arms and set the stage for a split with Beijing. Castro at
around this same time put an end to the debate on incentives in the Cuban
economy, a reºection of how the Sino-Soviet rift was affecting the PCC.
On 13 March, a month after Guevara’s visit to Beijing, Castro spoke at a
mass rally celebrating the anniversary of a student uprising against the Batista
105
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
70. Hoy brieºy reported Guevara’s arrival in Guangzhou but carried no further news and did not even
mention his departure from China. Now that the Chinese sources have revealed what Guevara’s real
mission was, the low-key coverage is understandable. Castro and other leaders in Havana may not
have expected Guevara to make any substantial breakthrough even though his visit was the last effort
to save Sino-Cuban relations. See Tretiak, Cuba and the Soviet Union, p. 26.
71. Castro was not totally wrong. China did make an effort to improve its relations with the USSR in
the event of Khrushchev’s resignation. In early November 1964, Zhou Enlai led a Chinese delegation
to Moscow for the annual celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution. But the visit merely made the Chi
-
nese believe that the Soviet Union had no intention of making signiªcant concessions. The Chinese
were particularly angered when Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovskii suggested that the Chi
-
nese remove Mao, emulating the ouster of Khrushchev. Malinovskii made this suggestion at a banquet
when he seemed half-drunk, but the Chinese construed it as a test of the unity of Chinese leadership.
See Yu Zhan, “Memoir on Premier Zhou Enlai’s Last Visit of the USSR,” in Luo Guibo, Han
Nianlong, and Gong Dafei, eds., My Years of Diplomats (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publisher, 1995),
pp. 45–46. When Zhou Enlai met with Guevara, he told the Cuban ofªcial, “If Cuba has any
difªculty, please let us know. Do not hesitate. Do not worry about our capabilities to meet your needs.
If we cannot provide what you need now, we will do our best to provide it next year or the year after.”
Wang, The Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 497. According to Li
Lianqing, a senior Chinese diplomat, Zhou met Guevara at breakfast on 11 November and speciªcally
told him about Malinovskii’s provocation, adding that this incident had exposed Moscow’s intention
of “overthrowing Comrade Mao Zedong.” See Li Lianqing, Zhou Enlai: The Great Diplomat, 5 Vols.
(Hong Kong: Tiandi Publisher, 2001), Vol. 5, p. 280.
regime. He criticized China by referring to “Byzantine feuds” and accused the
Chinese of smuggling propaganda materials—the “apple of discord”—into
Cuba.
72
Castro repeatedly said that the PCC had the right to decide its own
policies vis-à-vis the world Communist movement and that such “contra
-
band” from China was not at all welcome. According to Peter Schenkel, Cas
-
tro was referring to China’s practice of spreading propaganda materials in
Cuba, a practice he had condemned during a private meeting with students a
few days earlier.
73
The text of Castro’s 13 March speech appeared in transla
-
tion in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on 18 March.
74
A month later, Raúl Cas
-
tro openly deªed Maoist doctrine concerning imperialist military power
when he said that the war in Vietnam had shown that imperialism was not a
“paper tiger.”
75
Most likely, Raúl was responding to Mao’s allegation four
months earlier that the Cubans were afraid of imperialism. Although the Cas
-
tro brothers did not mention China by name, their target was obvious to ob
-
servers. In the meantime, Mao’s writings disappeared from Cuba’s bookstores,
and Castro made another visit to Moscow.
China did not directly parry the attacks, but, according to Tretiak, as
early as February 1965 some of China’s ideological allies, such as the Albanian
and Belgian Communists and some pro-Chinese Latin American Communist
parties, voiced their criticism of Cuba, particularly concerning the meeting
held in Havana of Latin American Communist parties. These parties almost
certainly were not acting spontaneously.
76
Wang Youping experienced this difªcult period in Sino-Cuban relations
from his vantage point in Havana. He later recalled the great unease he felt
when he heard about the Castro brothers’ statements, which conªrmed his
suspicion that Guevara was under tremendous pressure from other Cuban
leaders because of his pro-Chinese standpoint. According to Wang, from June
1964 to March 1965 he met Guevara nine times, including two dinners and
subsequent long talks. The last meeting was on 26 March 1965, thirteen days
after Castro publicly made his insinuations about China. Wang was received
by Guevara along with a Chinese textile delegation. When the meeting was
over, Guevara asked Wang to stay in his ofªce, and the two of them talked for
more than one hour. According to Wang, Guevara looked blue and was
coughing all the time and constantly using a mini sprayer to alleviate his
106
Cheng
72. Johnson, Communist China and Latin America, p. 167.
73. Peter Schenkel, “Cuban Relations with the Communist World,” in J. Gregory Oswald, ed., The
Soviet Union and Latin America (New York: Pall Mall Publishers, 1970), pp. 151–152.
74. Jacques Lévesque, The USSR and the Cuban Revolution: Soviet Ideological and Strategic Perspectives,
1959–77 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978), p. 113.
75. Ibid.
76. Tretiak, Cuba and the Soviet Union, pp. 40–41.
cough (he had suffered from asthma since childhood). Although Guevara was
short of breath, the conversation was almost a monologue. He told Wang that
he was leaving Havana for Oriente Province for summer harvest, which later
became a cover for his disappearance. He then began to praise the Chinese
revolution and culture and told Wang that he was an admirer of China.
Guevara smoked a pipe during the conversation and mentioned that he had
bought the pipe in Beijing the previous month.
Guevara did not dwell on any substantive matters, but his small talk was,
in Wang’s view, more compelling than any substantive discussion. As Wang
observed,
Guevara spent a much smaller amount of time with the textile delegation than
with me, and he was talking all the time during the two meetings. My sense was
that his meeting with the Chinese textile delegation was a subterfuge. His real
intention was to meet the Chinese ambassador [i.e., Wang]. At that time, Sino-
Cuban relations were increasingly deteriorating, so any direct contact between a
Cuban leader and the Chinese ambassador would be politically too sensitive.
Therefore I think the meeting with the Chinese textile delegation just provided
him with an opportunity to meet me and say goodbye without raising suspicion
among other Cuban leaders.
77
Wang was proud that he was the last foreign ambassador whom Guevara met
as a Cuban ofªcial. Although Guevara was apparently the most pro-Chinese
and anti-Soviet Cuban leader, Wang recalled that he never talked to him
about the Sino-Soviet division, nor did Wang mention having broached any
sensitive issues in Sino-Cuban relations when he met with Guevara, even pri-
vately. The evidence now available suggests that Guevara decided to avoid re
-
vealing his personal views on such issues in front of the Chinese, who might
have interpreted his words as evidence of dissension in the Cuban party.
78
In August 1965, as more evidence emerged that Cuba’s relations with
China were deteriorating, Wang Youping felt compelled to return to Beijing
for instructions. Wang said that because Cuba was the ªrst and only Latin
American country in which “the ªve-red-stars ºag [the PRC ºag] could be
raised,” he felt that many Chinese policies and practices on the island needed
to be reviewed before the situation became helpless.
79
Most likely, he was re
-
ferring to China’s propaganda activities in Cuba, which soon became the tar
-
get of Castro’s open attack on China. Wang arrived in Beijing on 8 August
and two days later reported to Qiao Guanhua and Ji Pengfei, two deputy for
-
eign ministers. Qiao told him to compress his report to only 700 words and
107
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
77. Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries, pp. 91–92.
78. Ibid., 93.
79. Ibid., 89.
said he would deliver it to Mao and Zhou. The demand for a brief report and
the fact that Wang was not allowed to speak directly even to Chen Yi reveal
the Chinese government’s low expectations for Sino-Cuban relations at that
point.
80
On 26 August, Wang hurried to the Foreign Ministry to meet Qiao and
ªnd out what instructions Mao and Zhou had given. For reasons of con
-
ªdentiality, Wang did not want to bring the instructions with him when he
went back to Havana, so he summarized the instructions in four metaphoric,
rhythmic sentences (so they could be easily memorized and only he himself
would know the meaning): “When wolves are roaming around, why go after
foxes?” (i.e., that China would not treat Cuba as an equal rival while ªghting
the USSR); “To treat a dead horse as if it were still alive” (i.e., that he should
do what he could even if the situation was hopeless); “No line crossed, no re
-
sponse made” (i.e., that he should be tolerant of the Cubans and never initiate
debate); and “Be cautious when dealing with any new problems.”
81
However,
the Chinese leaders gave no indication that propaganda activities in Cuba
would change.
On the evening of 15 September, two days before Wang’s scheduled re-
turn to Havana (it was customary to have the ambassador host the celebration
of the First of October, which was two weeks away), he received a call from
Qiao and was asked to come to the Foreign Ministry immediately. In Qiao’s
ofªce, Wang read a cable that had just arrived from the Chinese embassy in
Havana reporting that on 14 September Fidel Castro and Cuban President
Oswaldo Dorticos had suddenly summoned Huang Wenyou, the chargé
d’affaires of the embassy. Wang’s memoir is discreet about what Castro and
Dorticos said, but he reveals that both Castro and Dorticos looked irate and
that on the table in the meeting room the Cubans had displayed samples of
Pekin Informa (the Spanish edition of Peking Review) and XHNA Telegraph
Text, the two main propaganda publications the Chinese had been dissemi
-
nating in Cuba. Wang also indicates that Castro and Dorticos accused the
Chinese of “disseminating seeds of discord among the Cubans” and behaving
“even worse than the American imperialists.”
82
The accusations shocked
Wang because Cubans until that time had been lining up in front of the Chi
-
nese embassy waiting for these materials, and Guevara was even suggesting
that a Spanish or English version of China’s People’s Daily be sold in Cuba. Ac
-
cording to Wang, the parallel drawn between China and the imperialist
United States was especially offensive. Qiao ordered Wang to postpone his re
-
108
Cheng
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., p. 90.
82. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
turn and let the attaché host the celebration on 1 October as a protest against
the Cubans’ accusation.
83
Despite the escalating tensions between China and Cuba, the Chinese
decided not to respond openly to any accusations as long as they were not
voiced in public and did not directly name China (the Cubans did not pub
-
licly disclose the 14 September meeting until February 1966). Up to that
point, the Chinese guidelines for dealing with Cuba had remained largely un
-
changed: “still calling them ‘comrades,’ maintaining the same level of eco
-
nomic and technological exchange, and not making the ªrst move toward fur
-
ther deterioration of relations.”
84
However, the guidelines soon changed.
Toward the end of 1965, Sino-Cuban relations were sharply declining.
Daniel Tretiak has shown that press coverage in each country (but especially
China) of the other side’s political and economic development was drastically
reduced from 1964 to 1965.
85
This development was apparent to many care
-
ful Western observers.
86
In the meantime, more evidence was emerging of Ha
-
vana’s increasingly close relationship with Moscow. Raúl Castro attended the
joint maneuvers of four Warsaw Pact countries in October 1965, and Mos-
cow even invited Cuban scientists and pilots to participate in its space project.
The ªnal straw for Sino-Cuban relations came when the annual eco-
nomic negotiations between the two countries collapsed in 1966. That year,
Cuba requested that 250,000 tons of Chinese rice (the same amount as in
1965) be traded for 800,000 tons of Cuban sugar, but China rejected this re-
quest because of an alleged rice shortage. China said it could provide only
135,000 tons of rice.
87
Because China had provided Cuba with rice and other
daily necessities in the past even when millions of Chinese were starving, this
rejection was undoubtedly intended as retribution for Cuba’s increasingly
pro-Soviet and anti-Chinese stand. The negotiations were long and difªcult.
The Cuban delegation was led by Ismael Bello, the head of the Foreign Trade
Ministry’s Department of Trade with Asian Socialist Countries. The negotia
-
tors arrived in Beijing on 10 November, but 50 days of talks failed to produce
any results.
88
As the negotiations dragged on, Castro openly attacked China
109
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
83. Wang stayed in Beijing until the end of October. He continued to serve as China’s ambassador in
Cuba until May 1969. His memoir gives no details about Sino-Cuban relations from March 1966 un
-
til his departure in 1969.
84. Wang, Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 498.
85. Tretiak, Cuba and the Soviet Union, pp. 36–41.
86. See, for example, Richard Eder, “Castro’s Romance with China Fades,” The New York Times, 14
November 1965, p. E6.
87. Wang, Diplomatic History of the People’s Republic of China, Vol. 2, p. 498.
88. “Facts on Sino-Cuban Trade,” Peking Review (Beijing), 14 January 1966, p. 14. The article was
originally published in People’s Daily on 10 January 1966; it is based on an interview between a XHNA
reporter and a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, both of whom are anonymous.
on 2 January 1966 at a mass rally celebrating the seventh anniversary of the
revolution. Amid displays of T-55 tanks and MiG-15 ªghters just shipped
from the Soviet Union, Castro enumerated Cuba’s enemies and warned his
people of a new threat: the diminishing rice ration. He told Cubans that the
rice ration for next year would drop from six pounds to three pounds a week
because China had broken its promise to maintain the same level of rice ex
-
port. Castro then accused China of joining the U.S. economic blockade of
Cuba. Castro’s open denunciation of China coincided with the opening of the
Tricontinental Conference held in Havana (starting on 3 January), in which
almost 600 delegations represented Communists, nationalist revolutionaries,
and sympathetic intellectuals from 82 countries. As the host of the confer
-
ence, Castro undoubtedly wanted to assert his role in such movements and
minimize China’s inºuence by silencing the pro-Chinese delegations in ad
-
vance. The conference also allowed Castro to clarify his attitude toward the
Sino-Soviet split. According to Cole Blasier, “the Soviet main concern at the
conference was to outmaneuver the Chinese in this three-continent Third
World forum.”
89
The CCP published Castro’s “remarks” in People’s Daily on 10 January
along with an interview with the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Trade
titled “Facts on Sino-Cuban Trade.” The text of the interview was reprinted
in Peking Review in English and Spanish on 14 January. The XHNA ofªcial
conceded that the amount of rice allocated to Cuba for the following year
(1966) would be less than in 1965 but added that it would be higher than in
1962 and 1963 and at “roughly the same level as in 1965.” Moreover, he said,
China never promised to maintain a ªxed level of rice trade. The ofªcial asked
why Castro had made the issue public when the negotiation was still ongoing
and why he had taken such “an extraordinary step on the eve of the Three
Continents Peoples’ Solidarity Conference in Havana? This offers food for
thought.”
90
The dispute was later called the “rice affair.”
In subsequent months, Castro intensiªed his anti-China rhetoric. On 6
February, he made another lengthy speech attacking China and condemning
the PRC’s propaganda activities in Cuba:
On 12 September [1965], the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces re
-
ported that mass distribution of this material was being carried out systemati
-
cally among the ofªcers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba by repre
-
sentatives of the Chinese government. Chinese representatives also tried to make
direct contact with Cuban ofªcers and in some cases went so far as to approach
110
Cheng
89. Cole Blasier, The Giant’s Rival: The Soviet Union in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pitts
-
burgh Press, 1983), p. 80.
90. “Facts on Sino-Cuban Trade,” p. 23.
ofªcers in an apparent attempt to recruit them, either to convert them or per
-
haps to obtain information.
91
Castro then revealed the meeting he had had on 14 September 1965 with the
Chinese chargé d’affaires. He said that the Chinese diplomat promised to
convey the Cuban protest to Beijing and report back to the Cuban govern
-
ment but that nothing had actually happened. On the contrary, China had
stepped up its propaganda activities, which Castro described as a Ҽagrant vi
-
olation of the norms of the most elementary respect” that should exist even
between non-socialist countries.
92
It was no coincidence that the Soviet Union
had signed a treaty with Cuba for a loan of $90 million only nine days after
Castro’s anti-China statement.
From Beijing’s perspective, the Cubans’ public complaints about China
had “crossed the line.” The Chinese responded by publishing an editorial in
People’s Daily on 22 February stating that Castro “has taken an active part
in the anti-China chorus” organized by Washington, Moscow, and all “inter-
national reactionaries.” The editorial defended China’s propaganda activities
in Cuba, arguing that the Cuban embassy in Beijing conducted similar activi-
ties (the distribution of printed materials and the like). The editorial also
asked why Soviet materials “deluge” Cuba, whereas Chinese publications were
dreaded like the “plague.” The editorial sardonically questioned “why [the
Cuban party has] such a lack of conªdence in its own cadres and ofªcers and
is own people.” Regarding Cuba’s deepening economic problems, which Cas-
tro blamed on China because of the reduction of rice exports (a “criminal act
of economic aggression,” as Castro put it), the editorial pinned the blame on
Moscow and served as a pungent reminder of China’s “self-reliance” advice to
Cuba in previous years:
In recent years, not only has the Cuban sugarcane monoculture, which is a leg
-
acy of colonialism, remained unchanged, but what the Khrushchev revisionists
call “the principle of international division of labor” has been put into practice,
further aggravating this lopsided situation and creating grave economic
difªculties for Cuba. Is this the result of advice given by the Chinese? Are Chi
-
nese to blame?
The editorial ended by noting that it was not a full response to the Cubans
and that China reserved the right to reply at greater length in the future.
93
The appearance of the Chinese response in People’s Daily, the authoritative or
-
111
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
91. “Text of Speech by Fidel Castro,” Granma Weekly Review, 6 February 1966, p. 1 Granma is the
PCC daily, and Granma Weekly Review is its English weekly edition.
92. Ibid.
93. Editorial, People’s Daily, 22 February 1966; reprinted as “Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) Editor’s
Note on Prime Minister Castro’s Anti-China Statement,” Peking Review, 25 February 196? pp. 13, 14.
gan of the CCP, suggests that it was directed at Castro himself. As Wang
Youping had summarized the guidelines earlier: “When wolves are roaming
around, why go after foxes?” Peking Review also reprinted Castro’s 6 February
speech, along with two articles written by pro-Chinese foreign Communist
parties.
94
Sino-Cuban polemics reached a peak on 13 March 1966 with another of
Castro’s lengthy televised speeches attacking China. Speaking at the Univer
-
sity of Havana, Castro said that by cutting rice supplies to Cuba, the Chinese
were committing “economic aggression.” China’s “mass distribution of propa
-
ganda,” he argued, was “in the same style as the Yankee embassy....Ifthey
persist with those activities, we will do as we did with the U.S. Embassy.” The
diminished rice ration was insigniªcant, he told the Cubans, because it would
only make Cuban people accustomed to wheat, which was healthier and more
nutritious. Then Castro directly attacked Mao, calling him a “senile idiot”
and vowing that Cuban leaders’ ages would never exceed 60 (Mao was 73 at
the time, whereas Castro was 38). He said “I advise the man to read The Dia-
lectic of Nature by Engels. With the passing of years, even the sun will be ex-
tinguished.”
95
Castro was ridiculing the Chinese personality cult of Mao,
which compared Mao to the red sun. Presumably, Castro engaged in these ad
hominem attacks because he was still incensed about what Mao had said
about him at the meeting with Latin American Communists. As for the Chi-
nese diplomats in the embassy who until recently had served him Beijing
duck and patiently listened to his nightlong talks, Castro said “they are pack-
ing. Let them go.”
Castro’s anti-Chinese speech on 13 March 1966 formally ruptured the
Chinese-Cuban partnership against the United States. The evidence now
available does not reveal how Chinese leaders and diplomats reacted to Cas
-
tro’s harsh attacks on China and Mao, but their reactions can be inferred from
the long estrangement and hostility that ensued between the two countries.
96
112
Cheng
94. When the Peking Review reprinted the editorial, it also reprinted Castro’s 6 February speech along
with two articles written by pro-Chinese foreign Communist parties. See “Castro Speaks of Unity, But
Has Chosen a Split,” Peking Review, 25 January 1966, p. 23; and N. Sanmugathasan, “Castro Joins
Anti-China Chorus,” Peking Review, 25 January 1966, pp. 23–24. “Castro Speaks of Unity,” by an un
-
named author, was originally published in the Belgian Communist Party Weekly. The article by
Sanmugathasan, a member of the political bureau of the Communist Party of Ceylon, was originally
published in Kamkaruwa (Labor).
95. “Castro University Speech Blasts CPR Betrayal” Granma Weekly Review, 15 March 1966, p. 2. Ap
-
parently, Castro referred to Friedrich Engels’s The Dialectics of Nature because of its focus on laws of
science and the universe.
96. From 1966 to the early 1990s, the two countries (as well as the two Communist parties) had no se
-
rious contact, although they still annually traded rice for sugar. The two countries even became ene
-
mies in the 1980s when they accused each other of becoming lackeys of the Soviet Union and the
United States (Cuba was following Soviet global strategies by sending troops and engineers to Africa in
particular; China, which saw the Soviet Union as the more dangerous enemy, was cooperating with
Conclusions
The ªrst half of the 1960s was a crucial period for world Communism. The
Soviet Union’s brief forays into economic reform, though largely stillborn,
contributed to the eventual rise of a new generation of leaders represented by
Mikhail Gorbachev. Maoist China was determined to take a different ap
-
proach, and Cuba, as the newest member of the world Communist club, wa
-
vered between the two giants and was eventually forced to choose. Although
Sino-Soviet relations and Cuban-Soviet relations during this period have been
explored at considerable length, Sino-Cuban relations and the triangular rela
-
tionship between Havana, Beijing, and Moscow have undergone much less
scrutiny.
The recently published Chinese materials have substantially enriched our
understanding of Sino-Cuban relations against the backdrop of the Cold War.
From 1960 to 1964, Sino-Cuban relations were much closer and more inti
-
mate than many observers had assumed. The Cuban leaders’ frequent unan-
nounced visits to the Chinese embassy, and the personal ties between Chinese
diplomats and senior Cuban ofªcials, are indicative of the close relationship.
Economic and technological cooperation between the two countries went far
beyond mere exchanges of rice for sugar, and the close relationship lasted
much longer than has often been suggested. The Chinese materials are also
valuable in assessing Cuba’s political development in the early 1960s. Scholars
have long debated when the Cuban revolution became “socialist” or “Marxist”
and whether U.S. hostility was the main factor pushing the Castroists into So-
viet arms. The Chinese materials indicate that as early as 1959 Beijing was
fully aware of the likelihood that the Cuban revolution would move in a
Marxist direction. Mao’s notations in early 1960 on the PSP’s draft constitu
-
tion indicate his concern that Cuban leaders were pursuing too radical a
course.
97
The new evidence from China thus bears out the notion that Castro
113
Sino-Cuban Relations during the Early Years of the Castro Regime
the United States on some strategic matters). Castro also harshly criticized China’s post-Mao reforms.
But in the early 1990s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the catastrophic decline of the Cuban
economy led to a rapprochement between China and Cuba. According to Wang Youping, who was
still a high-ranking diplomat (though no longer in Cuba), Castro suddenly began to visit the Chinese
embassy again, enjoying Chinese food and having lengthy and sometimes night-long talks there.
Within roughly a year (Wang does not give speciªc dates), the Cuban leader came to the embassy
eight times. Wang, My Career as Ambassador in Seven Countries, pp. 94–95. In November 1995, Cas
-
tro made his ªrst trip to China. According to Chen Jinhua, who headed China’s Central Planning
Committee and accompanied Castro during the visit, the Chinese showed Castro how Beijing duck,
his favorite, was prepared and roasted in the famous Quanjude Beijing Duck Restaurant. See Chen
Jinhua, “I Accompanied Castro When He Visited China” Zhongheng Monthly (Beijing), No. 5 (May
2003), p. 14.
97. The Chinese pattern of socialist transformation—for example the policies of redemption and “co-
ownership” of formerly private ªrms, as opposed to the Soviet approach of direct nationalization—was
attractive to many East European Communist leaders in the early 1950s. China emphasized the issue
was a Communist long before his public declaration and that Cuba would
have become a Communist country regardless of U.S. policy.
China’s inºuence was also reºected in the PCC’s ideological and strategic
divisions. After Guevara’s disappearance, Castro denied that any divisions had
existed within the party, but historians have long surmised that the PCC’s in
-
ner circle was in fact riven by ideological and strategic divisions, especially re
-
garding Guevara’s pro-Chinese and anti-Soviet statements.
98
The new materi
-
als, especially the record of Guevara’s ªnal meeting with Wang, conªrm the
existence of these divisions. The concurrence of Castro’s criticism of China
and Guevara’s disappearance from Cuba’s political scene in early 1965 was not
coincidental. Whether a conspiracy was being instigated against Castro by the
Chinese through propaganda and secret contacts in the Cuban army and
party, as Castro himself alleged and some analysts have argued, is not yet
clear.
99
One thing is for sure: In early 1966, when Castro openly turned
against China, the Chinese embassy in Havana did make some desperate ef
-
forts to salvage the situation, albeit in vain. As Wang Youping put it: “Treat a
dead horse as if it were still alive.”
Sino-Cuban relations from the beginning were overshadowed and ulti-
mately doomed by Sino-Soviet relations. But unlike China’s relations with the
East European countries (other than Romania), relations between Beijing and
Havana were not tied rigidly to Beijing-Moscow relations. Rather, the interac-
tions between Beijing and Havana were driven by their own dynamics. Until a
late stage, Cuba tried hard to remain neutral. Furthermore, Castro sought a
mediating role between Beijing and Moscow through his personal ties with
the Chinese, rallying the Latin American Communist parties behind him and
ªnally sending Guevara to Beijing as a last resort. These efforts should not be
regarded as merely an attempt to secure or maintain support from both
Beijing and Moscow. Castro was probably also trying to maintain his own
party’s unity. The ªnal showdown between Beijing and Havana, when it even
-
tually came, sundered the PCC. Not only Sino-Cuban relations but the Cu
-
ban party itself were victims of Sino-Soviet antagonism.
114
Cheng
when trying to expand its inºuence in Eastern Europe. See Yinghong Cheng, “Beyond Moscow-
Centric Interpretation: The China Connection in Eastern Europe and Vietnam in the Era of De-
Stalinization” Journal of World History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (December 2004), pp. 487–519.
98. Lévesque has argued that Guevara and Castro were “in profound disagreement” about “Cuba’s po
-
sitions regarding the Sino-Soviet conºict.” See Lévesque, The USSR and the Cuban Revolution, p. 108.
99. Damain J. Fernandez noticed that Chinese attempts to inºuence the Cuban army “coincided with
the ‘microfaction affair,’ in which a group of former members of the PSP were allegedly planning a
putsch against Castro” and that this incident heightened “the leadership’s sensitivity to outside inter
-
ference in domestic affairs.” See Fernandez, “Cuba’s Relations with China,” p. 19.
