This is genius.
Cuba’s population is about 10.9 million. That means, if my math is right, this shipment has about 2.75 lbs of rice per Cuban citizen. That’s a LOT of rice- about 10-12 servings per person. And there’s another 3 similar shipments coming.
This is not some useless token, this is a ‘feed the country for a week or two’ type gift.
You can bet your sweet ass that neither the people nor the government of Cuba are likely to forget this anytime soon. The ‘gentle giant’ USA is choking them, China feeds them. It’s a powerful message.
Of course it’s China so there’s always a price eventually. I suspect Beijing’s goal here is additional influence within Cuba, and I don’t see any reason why Cuba would have any objection. A few boatloads of rice gets you a LOT of good will in a starving country.
Besides all the political and moral issues and all that, I’m super curious to see how a massive influx of rice into Cuba in a time of starvation will affect their cuisine. Lots of interesting cultural foods come from periods of adapting new sources of nutrition into an existing cuisine. Obviously they already have access to rice, but I wonder how they will adapt to doing their best with eating mainly rice for some time.
It was really 500 tonnes. The rest was drone parts hidden inside.
Send Cuba more solar panels and electric vehicles!
If you collect a paycheck you are on the same side as the people this shipment is meant to feed.
States spend a lot of energy to keep people from realising this.
To help quantify, that’s a little under 3 pounds (1.3kg) per person, assuming perfectly equal distribution.
That’s surprisingly decent. Fair play to them.
It’s also politically advantageous for China
Ya think?
In all fairness, helping Cubans against the Trump administration would be politically advantageous for everybody in the World but those Far-Right politicians getting money from American billionaires.
Decency - the polar opposite of Trumps behaviour
We let it through? I’m shocked.
Yes, rice is not oil.
Also it isn’t preventing Israel from starving children, so A-OK
Must be truly desperate to bargain with such a fledgling state.
Username checks out
China is buying in all the good will that USA has lost through Trump being a general dick to everyone, for example by discontinuing USAID. Doing these sort of small things all over the world gives China a lot of soft power because those nations will obviously favor China over USA in the future.
Or maybe have empathy for the fact the poor people of that country have little electricity or food because of the behavior of the US. Maybe it’s a humanitarian thing to do instead of letting people suffer.
Countries don’t have empathy, or at least ones with hundreds of millions or even billions of citizens for sure don’t.
China has realized what the US used to know: Providing aid gives you soft power around the world. They’ve been doing this for over a decade now. The US, meanwhile, handicapped USAID.
Having some power in that region would certainly benefit China if it ever needs to keep the US at bay while invading Taiwan, for an example. How is any future POTUS, or even the current piece of shit, going to explain positioning a large amount of ships near Taiwan when China has a bunch of equipment ready in Cuba to shell the everloving fuck out of Florida?
I have to admit, the idea of Mar-a-Lago being reduced to a crater tickles me pink. Too bad that comes with Taiwan getting fucked over…
sure but Cuba is also a perfect strategic “partner” (read: location) for any nation that has a war plan against the US
Funny that you’re getting downvoted, because that’s already happened at least once… Good ol’ Ollie North!
A country with empathy, lol, that there is a fabrication of truths.
Like chyna so mean… The united NATO powers are crushing baby skulls.
A bad country doing a good thing doesn’t make them good.
Literally doing all your comfy life related things
Doing endless r and d
Advancing in renewables
Trying to build a proper community (some might disagree here) The list goes on
You wont find a perfect country but what China doing to the world and its people is far from “bad”.
Except for the whole genociding Muslims thing.
Surveillance and exceptional human rights abuses but overall nothing more than what the average Chinese person is subject to. Apart from those wierd stories about Chinese uncles sleeping in their beds, put out by the BBC.
We’re literally exterminating Arabs, wiping out entire bloodlines, but somehow we give a sht about Muslims in one corner of China? A bit suspect no?
We can care about both
The US doing bad things doesn’t absolve China of doing bad things. It’s not a zero sum game
Are you referring to the US?
No, China. The US stopped doing good things.
No, that would be a bad country doing a shit thing (or 20), doesn’t make them good.
The last few years have really soured me on the idea of nations in general.
I live in hope the NZ is a net positive on the world - but with the current right of centre coalition we have in power I’m losing that hope, especially at a local NZ level.
It is election year…vote like it matters.
The US doesn’t really do many good things lately.
