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2. China’s Intelligence Footprint in Cuba: New Evidence and Implications for U.S. Security
- Author:
- Matthew Funaiole, Aidan Powers-Riggs, Brian Hart, Henry Ziemer, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., Ryan C. Berg, and Christopher Hernandez-Roy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
- Abstract:
- China has long been rumored to operate spy facilities in Cuba, but few details about its footprint there have been made public. Research by CSIS reveals four sites within Cuba that are most likely to be supporting China’s efforts to collect intelligence on the United States and its neighbors. Satellite imagery and open-source analysis offer an unprecedented look into these facilities and provide clues as to how they could be used to spy on sensitive communications and activities in the region. These sites have undergone observable upgrades in recent years, even as Cuba has faced increasingly dire economic prospects that have drawn it closer to China. In light of these developments, the United States and its regional partners should carefully monitor China’s growing role in Cuba, harden sensitive communications, and push for transparency to reduce the likelihood of miscalculation.
- Topic:
- Security, Intelligence, and Geopolitics
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Cuba
3. Political Repression in Cuba Ahead of the 2023 Parliamentary Elections
- Author:
- Sandra Pellegrini and Ana Marco
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
- Abstract:
- On 26 March 2023, voters will elect 470 deputies to Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power, who, in addition to fulfilling legislative functions during their five-year term, will be nominating Cuba’s next head of state. The government has characterized Cuba’s political system as a grassroots democracy, where candidacies to the parliament largely emerge from municipal authorities and are approved by the National Candidate Commission, a body composed of social organizations, such as labor unions and student associations.1 In practice, however, Cuba’s electoral process has been criticized for blocking the opposition’s access to power. Notably, the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, a platform created by opposition members to promote pluralism, freedom, and human rights, has called voters to boycott the upcoming elections after pro-government supporters reportedly prevented several opposition candidates from running in the November 2022 municipal elections.2
- Topic:
- Elections, Domestic Politics, Repression, and Parliament
- Political Geography:
- Cuba, Latin America, and Caribbean
4. Party Ties: Vietnam, Cuba and China’s Relations with Other Marxist-Leninist States
- Author:
- John S. Van Oudenaren
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- China Brief
- Institution:
- The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- Last month, on the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the China-Vietnam comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership (中越全面战略合作伙伴关系), Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping met with Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Politburo Member and Head of the Central Committee Organization Commission Truong Thi Mai and asked her to convey his greetings to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (People’s Republic of China Ministry of Foreign Affairs [FMPRC], April 26). [1] The visit to Beijing by Mai, who has headed the VCP’s powerful organization commission since 2021 and was appointed to the Secretariat in March, occurred days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Vietnam (NhanDan, April 15; VN Express, March 6). As the maritime dispute between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea has intensified over the past fifteen years, Washington has deepened its ties with Hanoi based on overlapping geostrategic interests. Nevertheless, the Biden administration’s ability to achieve its goal of upgrading the U.S. relationship with Vietnam to a “strategic partnership” this year to mark the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the U.S.-Vietnam “comprehensive partnership” remains in question (Fulcrum.sg, April 20). Vietnam undoubtedly perceives the PRC’s drive to consolidate control over the South China Sea as its main geopolitical challenge. Moreover, Vietnam’s relationship with its larger northern neighbor is colored by mistrust derived from historical memories of Chinese occupation and a long legacy of conflict, including the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War and the subsequent series of border and naval clashes in the 1980s. However, the VCP, particularly the conservative faction, now views the U.S. as posing its primary ideological threat and is fearful that Washington aims to undermine its grip on power (Nikkei Asia, May 11, 2022). As two scholars at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences note in a recent analysis, Hanoi’s reluctance to upgrade ties with the U.S. stems not only from fear of angering China but also from concern with “Washington’s excessive focus on press freedom, religious freedom, and human rights as an internal intrusion and potential threat to Vietnam’s political security.” [2] Hence, Beijing is able to arrest Hanoi from drifting towards closer alignment with Washington by leveraging their shared Communist systems and mutual concerns about Western efforts to facilitate the “peaceful evolution” of communist states into liberal democracies. During his meeting with VCP General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Beijing last October, Xi spoke to both Party leaderships’ mutual concern with regime security. He stressed that each side “should stay committed to the socialist orientation” and called for increased party-party exchanges to facilitate “mutual learning in party governance and state administration, maintain high-level communication and strategic dialogue between the two militaries, achieve more outcomes in cooperation on law enforcement and security, and safeguard the political security and social stability of respective countries” (FMPRC, October 31). Party-to-party ties are a key element of the PRC’s relationships with the other three states with ruling Communist Parties: Vietnam, Cuba and Laos. [3] As with the CCP, the Vietnamese, Cuban and Laotian Communist Parties have each adapted and modified Marxist-Leninism to suit their national conditions, regional situations and elite political preferences. Despite their considerable differences, these states’ mutual Marxist-Leninist ideological orientations and systems foster shared interests, including maintaining regime security and “stability,” opposing perceived external attempts to define and impose Western conceptions of democracy and human rights, advancing a state-led model of economic development and promoting a more multipolar world.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Socialism/Marxism, Partnerships, and Political Parties
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, Vietnam, and Cuba
5. THE LIMITS OF PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY IN UKRAINE AND BEYOND
- Author:
- Costantino Pischedda and Andrew Cheon
- Publication Date:
- 06-2023
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Political Violence @ A Glance
- Abstract:
- Drone strikes targeted Moscow last week. Though much remains unknown about it, the episode appears to be part of a series of unclaimed coercive attacks that US officials attributed to Ukrainian government personnel, including the killing of the daughter of a Russian nationalist, the sabotage of the North Stream pipelines, and drone attacks on the Kremlin. With unclaimed coercion, perpetrators impose costs on adversaries to signal their resolve to prevail in disputes while denying involvement or simply not making any claim about responsibility. Unclaimed coercion is not unique to the war in Ukraine. Russia launched cyber attacks in 2007 to extract concessions from Estonia, though Moscow denied responsibility, and in 2010 Seoul claimed North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship, Pyongyang’s denial notwithstanding. Unclaimed coercion may have strategic benefits. Without unmistakable evidence about the identity of the perpetrator, the absence of a claim of responsibility creates plausible deniability, which, some argue, allows coercers to send intelligible, credible messages to targets while containing escalation risks. It may also reduce the costs of being seen as a norm violator. For instance, Austin Carson observed that, though both Saudi Arabia and the United States viewed the 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities as part of an Iranian coercive campaign, the absence both of conclusive evidence and a claim of responsibility prevented Riyadh and Washington from carrying out a tough military response, which would have looked “illegitimate while jeopardizing allies’ support.”
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Armed Conflict, Coercion, Russia-Ukraine War, and Plausible Deniability
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Ukraine, South Korea, North Korea, and Cuba
6. Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America
- Author:
- Susan Eckstein
- Publication Date:
- 10-2023
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- MIT Center for International Studies
- Abstract:
- About the speaker: Susan Eckstein is a Professor in the Pardee School of Global Studies and in the Sociology Department at Boston University. She has written numerous books and articles on Mexican urban poor, political-economic developments in Cuba, Cuban immigrants, immigration policy, impacts of Latin American revolutions, and edited books on Latin American social movements and social rights, and on immigrant impacts in their homelands.
- Topic:
- Poverty, Inequality, and Immigrants
- Political Geography:
- Cuba, North America, and United States of America
7. Artists killed in Latin America for exercising their freedom of artistic expression
- Author:
- Cecilia Noce and Diana Arévalo
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL)
- Abstract:
- This is an executive summary of the original report produced in Spanish that focuses only on violence against artists, like targeted killings related to the exercise of their right to freedom of expression and artistic creativity in Latin America. In 2021, CADAL recorded 378 attacks on freedom of artistic expression, of which 23 were murders. Artists and cultural workers who participated in protests in Colombia and Cuba were harassed, detained, and repressed. Musicians and cultural leaders were also involved in the violence between organized crime groups in countries such as Mexico and Brazil.
- Topic:
- Arts, Culture, Freedom of Expression, Protests, Targeted Killing, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Latin America, and Mexico
8. Hurricane Ian Highlights the Devastating Effects of the U.S. Blockade on Cuba
- Author:
- Mikael Wolfe
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- As Cuba reels from the ongoing effects of Hurricane Ian, a Havana-based Cuban scholar explains how the U.S. blockade has hampered Cuba’s recovery from Hurricane Ian and fuels ongoing mass emigration.
- Topic:
- Migration, Natural Disasters, Bilateral Relations, Sanctions, Hurricane, and Blockade
- Political Geography:
- Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, and United States of America
9. Cuba’s New Family Code is a Window into the Political Ecosystem
- Author:
- Ailynn Torres Santana and Julio César Guanche Zaldívar
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Abstract:
- After intense public debate the new Code was approved in a September referendum, placing sexual and gender politics at the center of the social and political fabric.
- Topic:
- Domestic Politics, LGBT+, Legislation, Family, Sexuality, Marriage, Society, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- Cuba, Latin America, and Caribbean
10. Progressive Policy Versus Conservative Norms: A Paradox of LGBTQ+ Rights in Cuba
- Author:
- Melissa Wilk
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
- Institution:
- School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
- Abstract:
- LGBTQ+ rights are gaining attention in national and international political discourse and policymaking. Despite recent progress, complex challenges still stand in the way of establishing human rights for LGBTQ+ communities around the world. One such challenge is the uneven progress towards LGBTQ+ rights caused by conflicts between progressive policy and conservative norms, which poses a threat to the progress that has been made and may lead to worsening conditions for LGBTQ+ people. Within the context of Latin America and Cuba specifically, this paper explores whether progressive policy alone is sufficient for enabling change, and the relationship between policy and norms: does policy shift with norms? Or do norms shift with policy? With a unique history and culture, and some of the strongest pro-LGBTQ+ policies in the region, Cuba provides an opportunity to examine these questions and provides critical insights for literature that is otherwise underdeveloped.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Development, LGBT+, Norms, and Progressivism
- Political Geography:
- Cuba and Caribbean