A Panda and a Bear in the Caribbean
... The Helms-Burton Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996, imposing sanctions against foreign companies trading with Cuba, is a vivid illustration of this. Against this backdrop, selling arms to Havana openly was very risky. We can only guess how the Cuban authorities skirted the ban, in view of the incident with the North Korean vessel in the summer of 2013 and accusations of China sending secret arms shipments to Havana sparked by the rumor that “at least three arms shipments were traced from China to Cuba ”, which appeared in the American press in 2000. At that time Beijing did not issue any denials. Chinese spokesman Zhang Yuanyuan ...