Castro's Reflection on Meeting Hu Jintao

MEETING HU JINTAO
Reflections by comrade Fidel
Nov 20, 2008

I didn't want to speak much, but he forced me to elaborate. I asked a
few questions but I mostly listened to him.

He related the exploits of the Chinese people in the past 10 months.
The enormous nation with a 1.3 billion population has been hit by
heavy and out-of-season snow, and an earthquake which devastated
areas three times that of Cuba; in addition to the most serious
international economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I could see in my mind the great efforts of the Chinese people, its
workers, its peasants and its manual and intellectual workers; the
traditional hard-working spirit and the millennium-old culture of
that country that preceded by thousands of years the colonial period
imposed by the West, the same West where the current G-7 powers sit
today with their force and wealth, playing a hegemonic role in the
world economy.

What a great challenge for this leader in these times of
globalization who in a gesture of goodwill came to visit our
blockaded, harassed and threatened homeland! Are we not one a rogue
state among 60 or more that can be the target of a pre-emptive
attack? That much was said by the insane leader of the empire six
years ago, the same man who just five days ago met in Washington with
the G20!

China is the only member of that group whose State can regulate a
high growth rate, at the pace it chooses, no less than 8% in 2009.
The idea raised during the last Party Congress was to quadruple the
per capita Gross Domestic Product between 2000 and 2020, measured in
2007 present values; that was the year the Congress was held.
He spoke to me about that in detail. Thus, in conditions of peace,
China will reach by the end of that period the figure of no less than
4 thousand dollars per capita income. I think that it should not be
forgotten that China is an emerging nation whose per capita income at
the time of the revolutionary victory --with a smaller population?
hardly reached $400 per capita, and the country was completely
isolated by imperialism. Just compare this with the $20 thousand per
capita, or more, that developed capitalist countries such as Japan,
the Western European nations, the United States and Canada currently
enjoy. The per capita income in some of these exceeds the $40
thousand annually, even if their distribution in society is far from
fair.

It is only by using $586 billion from its foreign reserves amounting
to almost $2 trillions, accumulated through much hard work and
sacrifices that this country is facing the present crisis and
advancing. Is there any other country as sound as this?

The President of China, Secretary General of the Party and Chairman
of the Party and Government Central Military Commissions, Hu Jintao,
is a leader who's aware of his authority and exercises it to the
full.

The delegation he headed signed with Cuba twelve draft agreements
towards a modest economic development in an area of the planet where
the small territory in its entirety can be battered by increasingly
intensive hurricanes, an evidence of true climate changes. The area
affected by the earthquake in China is hardly 4% of the total area of
that great multinational State.

Under certain circumstances, the size of an independent country, its
geographical location and the size of its population can play a major
role.

Would a country like the United States, which robs already trained
minds everywhere, be in a position to apply an Adjustment Act to the
Chinese citizens similar to the one it applies to Cuba? Obviously
not. Could it apply it to the entire Latin America? Of course, it
couldn't there either.

Meanwhile, our marvelous, contaminated and only spaceship continues
to circle around its imaginary axis, as one popular Venezuelan
program likes to repeat.

It's not an everyday occurrence for a small state to have the
privilege of receiving a leader of Hu Jintao's stature and prestige.
He shall now continue his trip to Lima. There will be another great
meeting there. Again, President Bush will attend, this time seven
days closer to the end of his mandate.

It is said that in Washington, with only 20 leaders of the attending
nations, the local security measures and those required by the host
to thwart any attempt at physical removal, changed the habits and
every day life in that city. How would it be in the great city of
Lima? The city will surely be taken over by the security forces.
It will be difficult to move around it because the well-trained members
of the US supranational bodies will be there, and their interests and
plans will only be known many years after the presidential terms of
the eventual leaders of the empire are over.

I summed up for him some of our country's assessments on the habits
of our neighbors to the north, which tries to impose on us its ideas,
its mindset and its interests with its fleet full of nuclear weapons
and fighter planes; also our views on Venezuela's solidarity with
Cuba from the most critical days of the Special Period and the hard
blows dealt by the natural disasters. Likewise, that President
Chavez, a great admirer of China has been the steadiest advocate of
socialism as the only system capable of bringing justice to the
peoples of Latin America.

In Beijing, they treasure good memories of the Bolivarian leader.

President Hu Jintao reaffirmed his wishes to continue developing
relations with Cuba, a country for which he feels great respect.

The conversation went on for 1 hour and 38 minutes. He was warm,
friendly and modest, and his affection was obvious. I found him
young, healthy and strong. We wish our distinguished and fraternal
friend the best in his endeavors. Thanks for his encouraging visit
and the honor of showing an interest in a personal meeting with me!

Fidel Castro Ruz

November 19, 2008

1:12 p.m.

Castro serenades China's Hu on landmark Cuba visit

AFP
Nov 20, 2008

HAVANA– China's President Hu Jintao made a landmark visit to Cuba Tuesday, bearing millions of dollars in aid and promises of closer future trade ties.

The Chinese leader brought 4.5 tonnes of humanitarian aid for victims of three hurricanes that battered Cuba this year, which was handed over late Monday after Hu's arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport.

Receiving the gift, Cuba's Minister of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Rodrigo Malmierca said that Cuba "deeply appreciates the visit of President Hu Jintao, at the exact moment the country is struggling to recover and continue its development."

It was the third donation China has made to assist Cuba in its recovery from hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma, which caused 10 billion dollars worth of damages in the space of two months. Hurricane aid from the Chinese government and businesses has totalled more than 2.5 million dollars.

Later he accompanied President Raul Castro on a visit to a school for Chinese students, where the Cuban leader sang snippets of a song in Chinese praising late Communist Party Leader Mao Zedong.

"I learned to be a student like you, young like you and will remain so all my life," Castro told Hu and 300 Chinese students in the town of Tarara, east of Havana.

During the ceremony, President Hu thanked the Cuban authorities for supporting young Chinese students in Cuba, noting that by 2011, some 5,000 Chinese will have learned Spanish in Cuba since the inception in 2006 of the exchange program which he called a "sign of friendship and cooperation ... between the Cuban people and the Chinese people."

During his 36-hour visit -- his first to Cuba since 2004 -- Hu plans to oversee the signing of various cooperation deals.

Hu also visited convalescing former president Fidel Castro, 82.

The Chinese leader held a "long conversation" with the former Cuban leader and described finding Castro "very recovered," according to the Chinese official Xinhua news agency. The two appeared in a picture published on the website.

Fidel Castro has met with several foreign leaders in recent months, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Hu arrived in Havana late Monday after attending the world economic crisis summit in Washington and making a stopover in Costa Rica, where he launched free-trade talks and a string of cooperation deals.

His Latin America tour, which also includes an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, comes as China expands its diplomacy and investment around the world, eyeing natural resources and developing markets for manufactured goods and even weapons.

Chinese exports to Latin America grew 52 percent in the first nine months of 2008 to 111.5 billion dollars, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.

China was Cuba's second business partner, after Venezuela, in 2007 with 2.7 billion dollars of combined trade, and one of its main creditors.

The two countries have remained close for decades, their Marxist Socialist past a driving force in relations, and they have increased ties since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"This visit is an expression of the excellent existing links between both parties and governments," said an official statement published in Cuba's official government paper Granma on Monday.

Hu's visit comes less than two weeks before the arrival of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in another Russian bid to fortify relations with outspoken US adversaries in Latin America on the back of a trip to Venezuela.

China offered key support to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro when Cuba fell into dire economic straits after the former Soviet Union collapse, forging a divide which Russia has recently sought to reduce.

Current deals include Chinese oil prospecting and extraction in Cuba -- onshore and offshore -- and two Cuban eye hospitals in China and a third under construction.

Since Raul Castro officially assumed power in February, taking over from his ailing older brother Fidel, analysts suggest he is moving toward China's market economy model, although authorities still underline support for Cuba's state controlled economy.

Raul Castro recently sought foreign investment for prospecting and exploitation of gold, silver, zinc and copper deposits.

China already invests in nickel, Cuba's main export, and hydrocarbons on the island which produces the equivalent of 80,000 barrels of oil and gas per day.

Granma on Monday lauded the Chinese model but underlined "an unequal distribution of wealth in the country, marked difference between city and countryside and the erosion of the environment."