Cuba receives China rice shipment amid US threats, blackouts

Cuba took delivery of 15,000 tons of rice donated by China on Sunday when the first of several promised shipments arrived at the port of Havana, helping to somewhat alleviate acute shortages on the Caribbean island.

"This noble gesture of solidarity will reach millions of consumers throughout all the provinces, in addition to our health and education institutions," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on social media.

"The heartfelt ties of friendship and cooperation that unite [Cuba and China] are strengthened in crucial moments," he said.

Chinese ambassador Hua Xin said on Cuban television that the deliveries represent "the largest food aid" from China to Cuba "in recent years."

The shipment is the first batch of 60,000 tons of rice that Beijing has pledged to help combat a dire economic situation in the communist country which has only been exacerbated since the United States toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and halted exports of oil from Venezuela to Cuba.

Cuba faces blackouts amid economic crisis

On Sunday, up to 64% of Cuba was set to be subjected to simultaneous blackouts, according to data from the state-run Electric Union (UNE) compiled by the Spanish EFE news agency.

The Cuban government has recently acknowledged that the island's energy situation is "acute," "critical," and "extremely tense," with some blackouts in the capital Havana lasting 22 hours or more.

Last week, a record was set when 70% of Cuban territory was simultaneously without power during the moment of highest energy consumption. This week, the impact of these outages has fluctuated between 58% and 65% of the island.

The Havana government has called the current US oil embargo — which has been imposed on top of a general US trade embargo in place since 1962 — "genocidal" and has accused Washington of "suffocating" the island.

Cuba requires approximately 100,000 barrels of oil per day to meet its energy needs, only about 40,000 of which are supplied by domestic production. Various independent studies estimate that between $8 billion and $10 billion would be required to revitalize the Cuban energy system.

US threats against Cuba

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump's administration continues to step up political pressure on Cuba, pushed by hardline Cuban-Americans in Florida, who have called for US-instigated regime change in their homeland for decades.

But ousting Diaz-Canel is unlikely to be as straightforward as the operation to remove Maduro in Venezuela in January, not least due to the lack of an obvious alternative.

"The security apparatus in Cuba has systematically dismantled every alternative or potentially alternative power source," Orlando Perez, an expert on US-Latin American relations at the University of North Texas in Dallas, told the Reuters news agency.

The Cuban military is also a more cohesive and ideologically entrenched fighting force than Venezuela's and ​more likely to resist foreign intervention.

Havana is also seen as more advanced in the fields of surveillance and intelligence after years of cooperation with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and more recently with China.

Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah