Chinese-style reforms would be an improvement

Posted on Thu, Jul. 05, 2007

CUBA
Chinese-style reforms would be an improvement
BY MARIFELI PEREZ-STABLE
mps_opinion@comcast.net

''China opened the door wide, Vietnam a window, here not even a crack!''
So blasted Fidel Castro in 1995 after visiting the two Asian countries.
Modest market reforms had earlier cracked a vent to capitalism in Cuba,
which his recalcitrance kept from widening and then all but closed. Last
month, the Comandante sang Vietnam's praises in a taped TV interview
without ever mentioning the market as the source of its success.

I spent the first two weeks of June in China with Cuba constantly on my
mind. Vast differences in size, resources and geopolitics aside, China
and Cuba have a few things in common. Each is a dictatorship established
by a national revolution. The Chinese and Cuban Communist parties have
weathered domestic and international adversities. Nationalism and the
steely resolve to retain power are the central levers of their regimes.

Castro, however, opted for ideological battles, revolutionary ethics and
true socialism, while the Chinese leadership placed the economy and
living standards at the heart of its rule. What a difference each choice
makes for ordinary citizens!

In Cuba, most people suffer through untold hardships to scrape up their
daily fare. Consumption is rationed, stores are sparsely stocked and
options are limited. Not so in China where people are respected as
consumers, if not fully as citizens. Still, the state basically leaves
them be as long as the political lines in the sand aren't crossed. In
Cuba, the regime's elbows are never far away.

Contemporary China is marked by two before-and-after moments: Mao
Zedong's death in 1976 and the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The
first led to the rise of Deng Xiaoping and the market opening that
jump-started the economy. The second shook the regime's foundations.
Three years after giving the order to mow down the students, Deng
accelerated the reforms as a means to regain some legitimacy and give
ordinary Chinese a stake in the system.

During his 2003 visit, Castro commented: ''I can't really be sure what
kind of China I'm visiting.'' Mao would surely have seconded him. Yet,
the Great Helmsman is still held in high esteem, even though his
policies -- which cost millions of lives and ruined the economy -- are
criticized without attribution. Mao souvenirs abound. I bought a deck of
cards that opened with a joker bearing a full-length photo of Mao.
Personality cults aren't what they used to be.

Raúl Castro and the other successors are trapped in the worst possible
scenario: Castro is alive and somewhat recuperated. Will his veto on
markets stand? If so, the succession's longer-term prospects may be more
complex and uncertain. Might Raúl at least manage a return to the
reforms of the early 1990s, e.g., by freeing self-employment from the
manifold strictures imposed in the past decade? Could Fidel's interview
on Vietnam be useful to legitimize modest changes?

Last July 31, we thought a signal before-and-after moment neared for
Cuba. If we're frustrated, so it seems are ordinary Cubans as the
expectations awakened last year have gone unmet. That's what official
but unpublished surveys are apparently registering. While diffused and
unorganized, there is widespread discontent in Cuban society. The regime
should seize the opportunity. For starters, nothing major would be
required -- liberalizing self-employment would immediately catch
people's attention.

Raúl, it is said, is too cautious. All the same, I'm sure he has to
think about his children and grandchildren. Wouldn't a Cuba that
delivers material well-being be more hospitable to them than one that
implodes?

A successor regime is anathema in official Washington and sectors of
Cuban Miami. I'd welcome it as a stepping stone to a better Cuba and,
eventually I hope, one that is free and democratic. Anything that
ameliorates the penury of Cubans should be welcomed. If the succession
consolidates for a while, Castro will serve the regime as Mao does China's.

A democratic Cuba -- like a more-open China with Mao -- would, however,
hand down a more-complete judgment on the Comandante. In the meantime,
we'd be making progress if joker cards bore Castro's image.

Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the
Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C., and a professor at Florida
International University.

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