The first factor is the obvious one. With 1.3 billion people China is the most populous country in the world. It’s hard to isolate 1/4 of the of the world’s population. That’s not to say that we should just push Cuba around because it’s a small country, but strategically, a harmonious relationship with Cuba is not a prerequisite for national security. But this is probably the least significant of my arguments so I won’t belabor the point.

Let’s also look at the relationship between the US and the two countries. Since Nixon’s opening to China in the 70s US-China relations have been relatively cordial. On the other hand castro has never backed down from his anti-American rhetoric and actions. He has harbored American fugitives, unleashed waves of immigrants, shot down civilian aircraft and even planted a spy in Pentagon. Cuba is on the State Department’s list of terrorist states and continues to try to aid the spread revolutionary movements in the region. China on the other hand has been focusing inward, trying to remedy its substantial economic problems. This is not say that China is model citizen, far from it, or that China hasn’t had it’s moments of tension with the US but objectively speaking our relationship with China is much deeper and warmer than it is with Cuba. Still this isn’t why I advocate trade with China and sanctions for Cuba. There are a couple of sound economic reasons for my position.

Neither China nor Cuba will win a prize for observing human rights but there is at least some hope that things are changing/will change in China. For one thing China’s power structure no longer revolves around one man as it does in Cuba. Over the years the changes in China’s leadership have brought in waves of new blood that have in turn brought basic economic reforms that have resulted in the privatization of large segments of the economy. While maintaining political control, the communist party has actually steered China towards a path resembling fascism. That may not sound like much of an improvement but privatization means that in at least one sphere government control is not ubiquitous. The hope, of course, is that as the Chinese middle and upper classes grow that they will begin to demand more civil liberties and human rights. The key here is that China has already decided to open itself. My personal opinion is that in this environment, capitalism and market principals are the most democratizing factors at play in China.

For more than 40 years however Cuba has remained loyal to the communist economic dogma of state control over the economy. castro has only implemented the most basic of reforms in reaction to huge economic crisis of the mid 90s. But even then castro always insisted that the reforms were temporary and they be structured in such a way as to limit their “corrosive” effect on his revolution. This is because unlike China, which is determined to have a richer, more successful economy, castro is only interested in maintaining his stranglehold over the Cuban people.

Carlos Alberto Montaner states it succinctly; “Castro was forced to find capital and know-how in the West to keep his foundering economy afloat. But he did so without renouncing his dictatorship or the economic model based on state monopolies tightly controlled by the government…Quite simply, he invited foreign businessmen to become partners with his government in "joint ventures" in which the foreign investors contributed the capital and management while the Cuban state leased to them a docile and cheap labor force, a sales territory and a captive market that was not subject to the risks of competition or the conflicts of labor unionism….To ensure that the entrepreneurs would not be the Trojan horse of feared democratic changes, the government appointed numerous retired army officers and members of the political police as directors and top executives of the joint ventures. To them, the government assigned a dual mission: to make sure that corrupt foreign businessmen did not contaminate the selfless Cuban workers, and to watch the workers closely so they wouldn't deviate from the noble principles of socialism.”

In any case, since the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and his assistance to the Cuban regime castro has unilaterally killed many of the smaller and mid sized joint ventures, often without compensation to the investors. The small businesses, which were allowed to exist during Cuba’s “special period”, have since been closed.

The last factor I’d like you to consider in comparing China and Cuba is credit. Opponents of the embargo never tell you that Cuba is free to purchase food and medicine from the US on a cash up-front basis and that, in fact, the US is currently the largest supplier of food to Cuba. What embargo opponents are really angling for is credit for Cuba. But Cuba is an incredible credit risk. It owes Russia billions dating back the days of the Soviet Union. It owes almost every nation it trades with. Yet Cuba’s economy is not showing any signs of breaking out of the stagnation it’s been experiencing. China has the second largest economy in the world (or 4th depending on the metric you use) and as everyone knows it has been experiencing significant growth over the last few years. I’m opposed to giving Cuba credit as long as the castro brothers are in power because I’m afraid it will be us, the US taxpayers that will end up subsidizing castro.

Simply put, the conditions do not currently exist in Cuba for foreign trade and investment to change the plight of ordinary Cubans and therefore I am against it.