Raul Castro, China, and Post-Fidel Cuba

Raul Castro, China, and Post-Fidel Cuba
August 22, 2006
William Ratliff

At the beginning of August, Cuba got a new "Maximum Leader" for the
first time in almost a half century. Raul Castro, 75, "temporarily"
replaced his brother, Fidel, while the latter underwent major surgery.

Fidel, who had been filmed several days earlier in Argentina losing
control when confronted by a critical Argentine journalist, disappeared
from view on his return to Cuba. In a packaged, printed statement
released on his eightieth birthday, August 13, two weeks after his
surgery, he told Cubans that they should be "ready to confront any
adverse news" about his health.

So, has Fidel already expired or will he return to power? Will he toddle
onto the stage periodically in the months ahead to tinker around on the
fringes of power, helping or hindering his brother or others in a
succession that already seems to have begun? Certainly his absolute
power will never be what it was since his long-denied mortality is now
so obvious.

Analysts differ radically in their expectations. For me, the key
immediate uncertainty is what Fidel will do while he survives; play the
"maker" or the "spoiler."

He could promote a smooth succession, if only by reaffirming his
certainty that Raul will make the right decisions for Cuba's future,
whatever they may be. Or he could stubbornly dig in his heels and
adamantly insist on maintaining the true Fidelista faith that has
created the current morass.

History suggests he will go out stubborn, greatly increasing the
prospects of bitter conflict, perhaps even civil war and U.S. military
intervention. But some who have worked closely with the two brothers
think his taste of mortality may cause him to be cooperative and allow
his successors to find their own new and different legitimacy.

If Fidel dies soon without digging in his heels, or cooperates in the
succession, I would predict a relatively smooth move toward carefully
orchestrated economic reforms, probably under Raul Castro's direction,
but with degrees of support from other current and perhaps former leaders.

Who is Raul? He was always the loyal No. 2 to Fidel's absolute power.
But he has long been the key behind-the-scenes player, almost an
efficiency nut in Cuban terms. His activities have included being
Fidel's hatchet man, a role some think is the sum-total of his character
and will turn him into a status quo tyrant. I doubt it, for Raul is
intelligent and far more pragmatic than Fidel, in addition to being more
"human," specifically more "Cuban," than his patriarchal brother.

Today Cuba is an economic black hole almost equal to China when Mao
Zedong died in 1976. In 2004, a high-ranking Cuban official admitted to
Le Monde Diplomatique that, "Everybody [in Cuba] wants economic changes,
except Fidel."

Any post-Fidel leader who expects to survive must show the Cuban people
rather quickly that there is hope for a better life in the near future.
People put up with Fidel's stifling economic policies and political
repression because he was, well, Fidel. But as Basil Fawlty might say,
there's no Fidel Substitute.

In the near, post-Fidel future, Cuban leaders are likely to follow the
Chinese lead in maintaining the revolutionary image of their original
great leader even as they dismantle much of his economic thinking and
system.

Raul and many other Cuban political, military, and economic leaders have
for years expressed great admiration for the rapid economic progress
registered in China and Vietnam. With his talent for listening and
working with others, Raul may have a good chance to conduct
Chinese-style change, that are long term, systematic, market-oriented
economic reforms identified as market-socialism under single-party
direction.

Up to now, Fidel has flatly rejected Chinese-style change for Cuba. But
in November 2004, when Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Havana, Fidel
said that China is "the most promising hope and best example for all the
countries of the Third World." Thus, on this and other occasions, Fidel
has provided a "bridge" to Chinese-style reforms in Cuba, which is more
than Mao ever did in China.

A prominent Cuban democracy advocate and economist, Oscar Espinosa
Chepe, just wrote from Havana in the Miami Herald that he thinks Raul
may become a Cuban Deng Xiaoping and "promote economic reforms with the
objective of creating a political base." And he added that, "the
economic reforms could be an anteroom to political reforms."

What should the United States do? Back off and let Cubans work out their
own future. Americans must recognize that if we can live with "market
socialism" in China and Vietnam, we can do the same with respect to
Cuba, if that is the direction the island's new leaders choose to go. If
Cubans don't go that way, and democracy simply is not in the cards right
away, they will commit suicide and their future will be much bloodier
and more complicated. But that, too, is up to them.

William Ratliff is Adjunct Fellow at the Independent Institute, Research
Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a frequent
writer on Chinese and Cuban foreign policies.

http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1796