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China Beats US In Early Cuban Internet Infrastructure Investment
lpress writes: The US would like to sell Cuba Internet service and equipment, but we have had little success so far. China has won the first round — they financed and installed Cuba's undersea cable, supplied backbone equipment and public WiFi access centers and will provide equipment for the forthcoming home DSL rollout. That being said, Cuba has very little connectivity today and most of what they have and plan to install is already obsolete by today's standards, so they will be buying a lot of equipment in the future.
In the Cold War era (and still applies now), the US gave a lot of "Foreign Aid" money to many countries around the world. "Foreign Aid" in quotes because, often, the money just went the pocket of corrupt government officials, and the people in the country got what's left, if any. The result is a lot of money spent, a lot of corrupt officials made rich but very little goodwill generated among the common people.
China obviously did their homework. Instead of just giving out money, they are building visible infrastructure projects around the less-developed countries in world, either as foreign aid if the host country accepts, or by "bidding" for infrastructure projects. "Bidding" in quotes because when you don't even try to make a profit and bundle in free financing package to boot, others can't really compete with you at all. Then the common people will see Chinese companies and workers building infrastructure for their benefit, generating goodwill.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn the details of this successful "bid" may include 100% financing by China, probably at low interest, so Cuba don't have to pay a dime upfront. The money used for this would be a much better investment for China than buying US Bonds.
Don't read too much into anything. Your ability to understand the macroscopic relationships at play in the global community will only lead you to new world order conspiracies or other false beliefs. You do not know the motivations or facts in relation to this situation unless you personally possess documents or have held discussions.
What I personally do know is that my life is going well, but investments are all down despite a relatively diversified portfolio, in times where the position of western nations is questioned, yet the situation is blamed on the Chinese economy.
What I also know is that of the countries that actually supply data, every single country is in debt, to the cost of at least $20,000 per person on earth. To who? That is the difficult question when you begin the research. Webs of shell companies controlled by usurers skim money from the little man, yet there is no publicly listed way of figuring out how to earn from the foolishry of the people and their governments. You must be part of the in crowd. The billionaires, who in times of recession grow their earnings thousandfold.
Cuba should do everything they can to keep the fangs of the usurers at bay.
By the way, I know nothing and I'm drunks.
Actually, check again, the first of the embargo's against Cuba were instituted under Eisenhower so you are literally incorrect there, and the Helms–Burton Act was named after Jesse Helms and Dan Burton for a reason. It did pass with enough of a margin that Clinton's veto might have been overridden, and I doubt he saw it as important enough to push the issue. It certainly wasn't a policy drive of his, and he did make use of the waiver provisions.
And a few years later, the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act was instituted as well, though still under Clinton.
But no, do keep up with the mindless mindless mindless mindless blaming everything, everything, everything, everything, on Democrats.
an embarrassing counter-example to American and western democracy's political claims against communism
I really can't argue anything else in your post, but I can't help but wonder how Cuba was supposed to be an embarrassment vis a vis political systems. Sure, it's easy to make the point that "America can't dislodge this thorn in their side that sits less than 200km from their own shore" but I'm hard pressed to come up with any positive connotations to "our dictatorship is better than your democracy."
There are many positive impacts of being in a society that is not focused on capitalism. I have not been to Cuba, but in a general sense:
1. Most communist countries have more public recreation space. Parks, squares, plazas, etc. are often more numerous and larger because the allocation of land is usually not based on "profit".
2. In communist countries, citizens only have 1 entity to worry about spying on them, collecting personal information, and controlling their life. Cubans worry about the government. Americans worry about the government, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc etc.
3. Culture and the arts often have a higher importance and more public funding. In most capitalist countries, art and culture has to pay for itself, or have the potential to pay for itself, or it doesn't get made. Many communist countries dedicate funding to this. Is it often self-serving? Sure. But art and culture have important roles in society and is often overlooked in capitalist countries.
4. Stronger, smarter, and more comprehensive city planning (not sure if Cuba does this well or not). In capitalist countries, city planning seems to be a lot more organic and chaotic compared to communist ones. Companies and people build where they want to build, and are motivated by cost. This can have serious problems with regards to "tragedy of the commons" where everyone is looking out only for themselves and the entire population suffers as a result. Many communist countries do a better job managing this and make choices that are better for society as a whole. Cities are often more dense, inefficient suburbs are frowned upon, things are built where they are needed and not where it is cheapest to do so, etc. See also point #1.
There are probably a lot more but this is just a few I could think of.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.