The Cuban missile crisis prevented the U.S from fully occupying Cuba; but now that the Soviet Union is gone, does Cuba still have nukes? If not, then how and why is Cuba not being terrorized right now?

  • pingveno
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    3 years ago

    Demonstrating that China is able to effect US foreign policy sends a very strong geopolitical message.

    But is this enough of a motivating factor that China would be willing to hurt itself? In the short term, the US forms roughly a fifth of the Chinese export market and 3% of total GDP. Long term, using their position as world’s manufacturer has a risk of causing other countries to shy away from relying on China. Countries are perfectly fine taking their business elsewhere if it means they’re nothing going to have China’s desires held over their head. We’ve seen some of the same happen with reliance on the dollar.

    Now balance that against Cuba from China’s view. There are ideological parallels, of course. But besides that, China gets no real economic benefit from Cuba. I just don’t see China sacrificing trillions of dollars over time mostly for ideological reasons.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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      3 years ago

      China knows that US is a geopolitical rival, and US has been pretty open about its intentions to break China. Cuba could provide the necessary justification to accelerate decoupling from US that would override any immediate financial concerns.