The Cuban communist newspaper, citing Deputy Superior Education Minister Reynaldo Velázquez Zaldívar, stated that the academic association between both Cuba and China’s Hebei International Studies University will allow Cuba to have the first educational institution of its kind abroad.
Velázquez Zaldívar asserted that, although the plan is in its “first steps,” it will become “something transcendent” that will mark an “important moment in the history of Cuban Higher Education.”
The Cuban Deputy Minister stressed that it is “very important” to maintain and strengthen the educational alliance between Cuba and China, and referenced an existing agreement in which China provides 200 scholarships to Cuba per year, “60 of them with financial support for the [plane] ticket.”
Velázquez Zaldívar pointed out that the scholarships materialize in universities of excellence, especially in those that have to do with “disruptive technologies, Industry 4.0, robotics, artificial intelligence, new materials, and new technology, among others.”
The Cuban official asserted that China “has an advanced development in these technologies, which allows the preparation of young undergraduates, but especially postgraduates associated with the strategic sectors of the economy of our country, which is where they need greater cooperation in training.”
“The internationalization of Cuban higher education is a strategic process that seeks to integrate global, intercultural, and cooperative dimensions in university functions, namely teaching, research, and extension, aligned with the country’s political and social principles, and in pursuit of development,” Granma’s report read.
China, through the Hebei University, has signed several education and academic-related agreements with Cuba in recent years. In 2023, both nations inaugurated a joint Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Hebei led by specialists from Cuba’s University of Camagüey. The inauguration occurred roughly three years after Cuba and China signed a cooperation agreement for the promotion of studies and programs related to artificial intelligence.
In recent years the communist Castro regime has increased its dependence and inked new agreements with fellow rogue regimes such as Russia and China to help ease the ongoing communist-caused collapse of Cuba after more than six decades of communist mismanagement pushed the island nation to the brink of complete ruin.
China’s ambassador to Havana Hua Xin highlighted in remarks this week the “trust and mutual support” of the bilateral ties between both nations and asserted that China has supported Cuba in times of difficulties such as hurricanes and the collapse of its power grid.
“China acted swiftly for assistance to Cuba, on issues such as the acquisition of food and new energy sources,” Hua said, referencing a donation of ten power generators that the Chinese Communist Party provided Cuba with in September 2024.
In May 2024, both nations established direct flight routes as part of Cuba’s ongoing efforts to attract Chinese tourism to generate revenue and stave off the decline of its limping state-run tourist industry — an income source of high importance for Cuba’s repressive military apparatus.
The “internationalization” of Cuba’s education system, as described by Granma, occurs amid the ongoing decline of Cuba’s education system as a consequence of the nation’s perennial humanitarian crisis and the collapse of its population.
In October, the Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba reported that a group of students at Santa Clara’s Las Villas University staged a peaceful protest against the ongoing and severe shortages of water, power, and food. The students were reportedly threatened by Cuban state security officials, who demanded that the students abstain from publishing information on the protest under threat of losing their academic careers.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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