By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez on August 7, 2025
José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez , photo: Bill Hackwell
On August 1, the print edition of issue 014 (New Era) of the magazine Cuadernos de Nuestra América (CNA) was presented. The magazine is published quarterly by the Center for International Policy Research (CIPI), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba.
CNA is the longest-running scientific journal dedicated to international relations in Cuba. Between the second half of 1983 and November 2010, it was run by the now defunct Center for American Studies. Since the first half of 2011, it has been the responsibility of the CIPI, with its print publication continuing until 2020. In 2021, it began what has been called its New Era, because it is now published quarterly in digital format and, through Ruth Casa Editorial, is offered free of charge on international platforms.
Issue 014 of CNA covered the period January-March of this year and consists of proposals from Chinese and Cuban researchers on topics of mutual interest, in particular the conceptualization of the Community of Shared Future, proposed by President Xi Jinping and implemented through various mechanisms of the PRC’s foreign policy. The CIPI proposed, and the Chinese Embassy in Havana supported, the idea of leaving a material testimony of this effort as part of the celebrations for the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Ambassador Hua Xin considered from the outset that this should not be just “another event” to commemorate the date, but could serve as a special moment to reflect together on a group of issues. For this reason, among others, what could be called the “second launch” of CNA 014 was planned immediately after the conclusion of the High-Level Conference on Global Artificial Intelligence, organized in Shanghai at the end of July.
The organizers of the relaunch of this issue of the magazine have been surprised by the national and international coverage of the event, for which we are very grateful. At the same time, this reaction compels us to reflect further on the “news” itself and its implications for Cuba and for the Latin American and Caribbean region.
As Deputy Minister Josefina Vidal Ferreiro explained at the time, the text made available to readers is the result of collaboration and direct exchange between CIPI and a group of Chinese centers and researchers.
A watershed moment in this bilateral academic relationship came in October 2023, when CIPI was invited to the celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and, specifically, to present its views at the Think Tank Forum. During 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences organized an exchange with representatives from various Latin American centers, which CIPI also coordinated, and later we were invited to participate in the bilateral workshop on Shared Future held in Beijing.
At the first of these meetings, the Chinese head of state not only reflected on what had already been achieved by the BRI, but also outlined the project’s priorities for the immediate future. Here it is worth making a comment on the Latin American and Caribbean context, where the magnitude of these trips to the future of our Chinese counterparts is often not appreciated, nor how they construct scenarios, on what theoretical bases, and how they relate their concrete actions to those conclusions.
The fact is that President Xi Jinping mentioned integration and joint work with think tanks (including research centers) from around the world among the IFR’s next priorities. That proposal went almost unnoticed by most of the audience, which was more focused on concrete parameters such as investment, trade, large construction projects, and land and maritime transport.
In fact, coinciding with those events, important transformations began to take place in Chinese institutions such as the Xinhua agency, CGTN services, and others, which, rather than offering journalistic coverage of events that have already happened, have moved on to creating content and new academic concepts related to international relations.
Universities throughout China have seen exponential growth not only in knowledge of the Spanish language (without a local or European accent) but also in research centers on Latin America and the Caribbean that study this part of the world not to understand it for and on behalf of Beijing, but to match the findings to the interests of each Chinese province or large city.
In the particular space of the CIPI (in conjunction with other Cuban centers), we try to translate what we heard in 2023 into concrete terms, knowing that each initiative or political proposal from the Chinese leadership is based on thousands of previous studies and will be accompanied in the future by various academic actions.
The words of Ambassador Hua Xin at the launch of CNA 014 reconfirm these assessments. They were brief and precise. He referred to the concept of a Shared Future for Mankind as “the construction of a new type of international relations; and as a strategic orientation, the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative; and as a platform for practice, the joint construction of the high-quality Belt and Road” (emphasis added).
Later, the head of mission was much more specific when he said that “economic globalization is an irreversible trend, and only by maintaining an open world economy can common development be achieved.” This statement goes directly against everything we hear from the old American locomotive, which once pulled strongly for (neoliberal) globalization and now intends to run on high tariffs and more nationalism.
And again, beyond statistics and tangible parameters, the ambassador stated: “The progress of civilizations cannot do without exchange and mutual learning.” With great modesty, he referred to Cuba’s contribution to this vision of a shared future, reminding us that “Homeland is Humanity,” according to Martí, and that Fidel warned that “the time is coming to think about the global homeland.” In other words, Chinese academia has carefully read and studied the main international approaches to the multilateral system in order to build and propose a project based on the most advanced and sustainable thinking of humanity.
If all these ideas seem very lofty and unrelated to everyday life in this part of the world, the ambassador brought them down to earth by relating them to the major event that had just taken place in Shanghai.
Artificial Intelligence would seem to be a topic that interests only experts and has only a tangential bearing on the lives of ordinary people, but this is not the case.
And here again, Chinese thinkers have traveled to the future and are back to tell us about the scenarios we may encounter if we do not act in time and together.
At a time when major US companies that mine the information we all irresponsibly provide on social media, digital search engines, and other devices, reject the possibility of establishing shared international rules for the use of artificial intelligence, ancient Chinese wisdom tells us that AI “is not only synonymous with technological innovation, but is a key variable for the common good of the world and the shaping of the future international order.”
The action plan proposed at the Shanghai meeting lists not one, but thirteen priorities that must be addressed immediately and jointly, so that this field of knowledge can result in shared well-being and not mark a new moment in history in which one part of humanity takes a new leap forward in development and the rest (the majority) falls even further behind.
For those who do not adequately understand the sense of chronology of Chinese institutions, suffice it to recall that this international conclave comes after (and not before) platforms such as Deep Seek, Zhipu, and Stepfun have left many “Western” AI competitors breathless and the Chinese authorities have made the Mazu intelligent system available to countries in the Global South for early warning of natural disasters.
Ambassador Hua Xin began his remarks at the August 1 event with a very special note for Cubans: “Recently, the hotel where we are meeting (Torre K) was unjustifiably included on the US sanctions list. Today, in making this presentation here, we are giving a clear response to this hegemonic act.”
Much more than reaffirming a traditional political position on the US blockade against Cuba, the Chinese representative was ratifying a basic principle in today’s international relations: spaces left empty are filled by others.
At a time when Washington is attempting to shake up Latin American and Caribbean political systems, influence local election results, treat all immigrants as second-class citizens, reduce funding for scientific research, ignore proposals from academia, and eliminate more or less shared ethical principles, Beijing is offering a concrete proposal that runs counter to this trend and is backed by tangible results.
All that remains in the old order’s portfolio is the threat of force, coercion, and unfulfillable promises. The new order can only be built on inclusiveness, equality among unequals, and the harmony of differences.
At CIPI, we have tried to explain these processes through the publication of several scientific articles in various issues of CNA and other Cuban magazines, as well as through the recent publication of the volumes China en perspectivas (China in Perspective) and China: hacia la modernización integral (China: Towards Comprehensive Modernization), also with Ruth Casa Editorial.
There are still eight years to go before the 20th anniversary of the IFR. The Chinese counterparts are already working on the arguments and conclusions that will be presented at that time. At CIPI and other Cuban centers, we have accepted the challenge and are also building that future, which will necessarily have to be shared.
Source: CIPI, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English