Editor's note: WND's multi-lingual reporter Toby Westerman specializes in monitoring global shortwave broadcasts and reading foreign-language news journals for information not readily available from the domestic press. Each month, Westerman presents a special in-depth report in WorldNetDaily's monthly magazine, WorldNet. Readers may subscribe to WorldNet through WND's online store.

By I.J. Toby Westerman
© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.

In an effort to "consolidate friendship and strengthen bilateral cooperation with the Cuban Communist Party," a "large delegation" of Chinese Communist Party officials is currently visiting Cuba at the invitation of the Cuban Communist Party, according to official Cuban sources.

The delegation's visit comes at a time when Cuba is boasting of continued improvement and diversification of the island's economy and its influence in the region.

A report coinciding with the arrival of the Chinese delegation speaks of "increases in production of nickel, oil, gas, steel and electricity," with sugar and tourism continuing to play a central role. Cuban trade with Latin America and the Caribbean accounts for "25 to 30 percent" of the island's foreign trade and is expected to grow.

The reports were carried by Radio Habana Cuba, the official broadcasting service of the Cuban government.

The current visit of the Communist Party members is the latest in a series of foreign dignitaries from socialist/communist states who have come to Cuba, expressing support for the island's regime.

In May, Chinese Minister of Information Industry Wu Jichuan arrived in Cuba to take what he described as "a new step in joint projects" on the island and he declared that "China will play a decisive role" in the development of telecommunications in Cuba.

Wu's visit resulted in a pledge to improve Cuba's telecommunications industry and explore the possibility of a joint Cuban-Chinese "television assembly line" on the island.

There have also been persistent reports of Chinese cyber-warfare technicians in Cuba.

Though the Communist Party delegation seeks to "strengthen bilateral ties" with their Cuban counterparts, those ties are already strong.

Cuban President Fidel Castro journeyed to China in November 1995, declaring that the Chinese "economic reforms are an example for Cuba."

Less than a year following Castro's visit, the Chinese Communist Party stated that the economic reforms the government had implemented did not involve any change in the political order. The Fifteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held in November 1997, adopted the concept of separating economic and political reform.

The model of market reform without governmental change continues to hold sway in Cuba. Castro not only condemns what he refers to as the "neo-liberal" free-market economy -- while extolling his brand of socialism -- but in April, he also called for "an international legal process similar to the Nuremberg trials" to punish global capitalist leaders.

The European Union has sent faculty from some of the finest European business schools to teach modern business techniques to Cuban managers, yet there is no question that the nation's official political ideology remains unchanged. There is no attempt to preach the benefits of the free market and the lessons are taught in classrooms with pictures of Karl Marx and Che Guevara on the wall.

The Cuban students attending the EU business classes are managers of some form of government-run -- or government-controlled -- enterprises. One student succinctly expressed the Castro government's approach to economic reform: "We must learn from the enemy."

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Castro condemns, embraces capitalism

Cuba bolsters Caribbean ties