China has bestowed $100 million to Cuba to help it survive a crippling profitable extremity aggravated by the coronavirus epidemic, the islet nation’s Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil said.
The donation advertisement on Saturday came as Cuban President Miguel Diaz- Canel concluded a visit to China, part of a rare foreign trip.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Diaz-Canel met on Friday and “the offer arose of a donation of around $100 million by China,” Gil told Cuban state TV.
Gil, who’s also Cuba’s frugality minister, said the plutocrat would go toward “precedences” on the islet, which has been rocked by its worst profitable extremity in three decades.
Diaz-Canel concluded his visit to China latterly on Friday and continued on a global stint designed to gain support for Cuba in revamping an electrical system that has failed constantly, causing frequent knockouts.
Gil said leaders of the two countries also bandied “the subject of the debt” that Cuba has accrued with China but didn’t specify the size of the debt.
“Our chairman explained the situation that we defy, and there was understanding from China. We’re seeking mutually respectable formulas for the planning and restructuring of the debts,” Gil said.
Chinese President Xi pledged support for Cuba’s “core interests” on Friday at a meeting with his Cuban counterpart.
In the commentary to Diaz-Canel, Xi said China hoped to “strengthen collaboration and cooperation in transnational and indigenous affairs” with Cuba. The two will “go hand in hand down the road of erecting illiberalism with each’s own characteristics,” Xi was quoted as saying in a Chinese government news release.
Read More: Biden-Xi meeting: Will it succeed in mending strained US-China ties?
Growing ties
Diaz-Canel’s visit is a farther sign of how China is trying to jump-start its in-person tactfulness after a virtual arrestment of similar exchanges during the epidemic.
Diaz- Canel arrived in China after a visit to Moscow, where he and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the “ traditional fellowship ” between their warrants-hit nations.
China is Cuba’s second biggest trade mate after Venezuela. Both nations are strong political abettors of Cuba.
before his trip, Diaz- Canel visited Algeria, where President Abdelmadjid Tebboune promised to transport energy to Cuba, contribute a photovoltaic power factory and cancel interest on debts, Gil said.
Diaz-Canel’s trip was also to include stops in Türkiye.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba grew closer, just as China and Russia gradationally established warmer ties.
