Foreign Pressure Works

It's ingenious to think -- that after five decades of brutal rule -- the Castro regime wants to undertake genuine reforms or democratize.

They want to keep totalitarian control forever -- or more precisely, for as long as they can.

Thus, the Castro regime only reacts to pressure. In the same vein, once pressure is eased, the regime emboldens and retrenches.

We saw it pursuant to the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1990's, when the regime scrapped its then-new "reforms" (practically the same ones it's purportedly undertaking now) as soon as European and Canadian tourists (and Hugo Chavez's oil subsidies) bailed it out.

Now, it's looking for China to become its piggy back.

Yet, even the Chinese are frustrated with Castro's derelict regime.

Excerpts from The Financial Times:

Cuba bows to pressure to reform its economy

Rising debt charges are forcing Cuba to reshape its Soviet-style economy, with leading creditor China among those cheering on the changes [...]

In a recent closed-door meeting of 500 senior officials chaired by Raúl Castro, president, Cuba's economy minister, Marino Murillo, reportedly stated that mounting debt and the need for fresh credit had left the government no choice but to put its economic house in order.

Cuba last reported its foreign debt at $17.8bn in 2007. Most analysts agree it now exceeds $21bn, or close to 50 per cent of gross domestic product and 30 per cent more than annual foreign exchange revenues. Many creditors have tired of Cuba's debt reschedulings. China is a relatively new member of Cuba's creditor club, having provided billions in loans over recent years. But it is now Havana's biggest creditor and second largest trading partner, after Venezuela [...]

Cuba is counting on China and Venezuela to provide fresh development credit. Some of its debts to Beijing will be backed by Venezuelan oil as collateral. A diplomatic cable, released by WikiLeaks last week, describes a US diplomat's breakfast meeting with the commercial attachés from Cuba's biggest trade partners. "Even China admitted to having problems with getting paid on time," the cable reported. "[Officials from] France and Canada responded with 'welcome to the club'."