The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel arrived in China this morning for a two-day official visit in which he will meet with the Chinese ruler, Xi Jinping, and will sign agreements between his country and the Asian giant.
“It is an honor to be back in China, a country to which we have so many close ties. We come in response to an invitation from esteemed President Xi Jinping,great friend of Cuba. Intense, productive and surely exciting hours await us,” the president wrote on Twitter along with images of his arrival in Beijing.
The ruler landed in the Chinese capital from Turkey, his previous stop within of an international tour that in the last week has also taken him to Algiers and Russia, and which takes place when the Caribbean island is going through one of the worst economic moments in decades, marked by a serious energy crisis.
In the images of his arrival, he appears getting off the plane accompanied by his wife, Lis Cuesta.
In addition to Xi, Díaz-Canel will also meet with the president of the National People’s Assembly (Parliament), Li Zhansu, and with the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, according to the Cuban Presidency.
During The signing of more than ten bilateral agreements is also expected during his stay, the same source advanced.
It is expected that the entire stay of the Cuban president and his entourage will take place in a “bubble anticovid”,a closed-circuit modality in which visitors have no contact with the outside world, in compliance with the strict restrictions that China has maintained since the beginning of the pandemic.
In this type of “bubble&# 8221; The visit of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, also took place at the beginning of this month, and even, last February, that was how the Winter Olympic Games were held in the Chinese capital.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning highlighted earlier this week at a press conference that Díaz-Canel will be the first president of Latin America and the Caribbean to visit the country after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). ) last October.
“We are confident that the visit will inject new impetus into the development of Sino-Cuban relations and promote new progress in our friendship and cooperation,” Mao added.
The Cuban delegation, the most important to travel abroad since the start of the pandemic, is made up of Deputy Prime Ministers Ricardo Cabrisas and Alejandro Gil, as well as those responsible for Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez; Foreign Trade, Rodrigo Malmierca; of Energy, Vicente de la O Levy, and of Public Health, José Ángel Portal.
During his stays this week in Moscow and Ankara, Díaz-Canel met both with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Cuban ruler’s last visit to China and his first as president took place in November 2018, lasting three days and during which he met Xi, with whom he agreed to boost ties “of friendship” between the two countries and several bilateral agreements were signed.
Cuba was, in 1960, the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, which had been created in 1949.
< For its part, China has traditionally supported Cuba in international forums such as the United Nations, in which it has called for the lifting of the US embargo.