Raul Castro slams US ‘confrontation’
TAIWAN’S President Tsai Ing-wen said yesterday the island would not accept a “one country, two systems” political arrangement with China, while stressing all cross-strait negotiations needed to be on a government-to-government basis.
Tsai spoke after Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech earlier that nobody could change the fact that Taiwan was part of China, and that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should seek “reunification”.
Tsai also urged China to understand Taiwanese people’s needs. He said China must use peaceful means to resolve its differences with Taiwan and respect its democratic values.
Speaking at the 40th anniversary of issuing the Message of Compatriots in Taiwan in 1979, Xi said the Taiwan question was part of China’s internal affairs and allowed no external interference. He said China’s reunification did not harm any country’s legitimate interests, including their economic interests in Taiwan. He said it would only bring more development opportunities to other countries, and inject more positive energy into the prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world. ON THE 60th anniversary of Cuba’s revolution, Communist Party leader Raul Castro blasted the Trump administration for returning to an outdated path of confrontation with Cuba and of intervening in Latin America.
Castro and his late, elder brother Fidel Castro led the rebel band that in 1959 overthrew a US-backed dictator and installed a Communist government on the doorstep of the US, setting the scene for decades of Cold War hostility.
The anniversary celebrations came as the region is shifting to the right, illustrated by the inauguration of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
“We feel deeply satisfied... and confident, seeing with our own eyes how the new generations assume the mission of building socialism – the only way for independence,” said Castro.
Two of Cuba’s closest allies, Venezuela and Nicaragua, are mired in political crises, and US President Donald Trump has tightened the decades-old US embargo on the island, after his predecessor, Barack Obama, had sought to normalise relations.
“Once again, the North American government is taking on the path of confrontation with Cuba,” Castro said in the city of Santiago de Cuba, where Fidel Castro proclaimed victory six decades ago. “Increasingly, high-ranking officials of this (US) administration are... trying to blame Cuba for all the region’s ills,” he said, adding that they stemmed instead from “ruthless neo-liberal policies”.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said in November that Washington would take a tougher line against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, calling them a “troika of tyranny”.
Castro, 87, said Cuba had proved throughout six decades of revolution it could not be intimidated by threats. Instead it remained open, he said, to a peaceful and respectful coexistence.
Cuba’s true battle this year would be an economic one, he said, reiterating comments made at the national assembly in late December by his successor, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who announced increased austerity for the fourth year running in 2019 in the face of a cash crunch.
“We need, first of all, to reduce all non-necessary expenses and to save more,” said Castro.
A decade ago, as president, he introduced reforms to liberalise and boost the centrally planned economy, yet it remains heavily state-dominated and bound in red tape. External shocks such as a decline in aid from Venezuela and devastation wrought by hurricanes have also dented growth.
Nonetheless, the Cuban revolution was on a secure footing, thanks to the transition to a competent, younger generation of leaders such as the 58-year-old Diaz-Canel, Castro said. Reuters