China in Cuba in the shadow of normalization of US–Cuba relations

Abstract

This essay traces the near century-long history of Chinese in Cuba, from their arrival in the mid-nineteenth century as contract laborers (“coolies”) for the sugar plantations, to free migration in the early twentieth century, to the depopulation of the Havana and provincial Chinatowns after the Castro-led socialist revolution, and into the present day (early 2017). As in the rest of Latin America and Africa, China’s presence in Cuba in the twenty-first century is led by the Chinese state and marked by vast investments in large-scale infrastructural improvement and resource development along with commerce, from the rice cookers and televisions in every Cuban household to the thousands of Yutong buses that rumble through the city streets. If President Obama’s initiative to normalize relations with Cuba after a failed 70-year embargo stalls, China’s state footprint on the island will likely grow in size, with xin yimin (new immigrants) not far behind, this time not to labor but to trade.