China’s First Step in Latin America: The Establishment of Diplomatic Relations with Cuba and the Beginning of the Conflict in the 1960s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61462/cujss.v49i1.742Keywords:
China, Cuba, Sino-Soviet conflict, Mao Zedong, Fidel CastroAbstract
This research article aims to study the factors leading to the establishment of Sino-Cuban diplomatic relations in 1960 and the deterioration of bilateral ties within a few years, by using information from China’s official publications and memoirs of Chinese diplomats. The research finds that, although Mao Zedong was ambivalent about whether Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959 would lead Cuba toward a socialist road, he was content with Castro’s anti-U.S. stance and agreed to have official ties with the revolutionary government of Cuba in order that China would have its first diplomatic base in the Western Hemisphere, especially in Latin America which was regarded by the U.S. government as its own backyard. However, with the intensification of the Sino-Soviet conflict and the radicalization of Chinese politics, Castro by the mid-1960s decided to tilt toward the Soviet Union, which in turn resulted in China’s cutting off party-to-party ties with Cuba in 1966.
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