It is still ruled by despots, and trade in the absence of a determined U.S. effort to undermine the communists in Beijing will make little difference. But all the dramatic shifts now taking place do suggest that a middle class is emerging in China, and I believe that this middle class will eventually demand broad acceptance of democratic values. Unfortunately, the prospects for even a slow transition to a market democracy through trade are much dimmer in Cuba. Castro has made it clear that he has no free-market or democratic impulses. Cuba strictly limits foreign investment.
Cuban contracts have no integrity.
Foreign firms operating there must hire employees from the government bureaucracy. In short, Castro's dogmatic enforcement of pure communist ideology would make trade with Cuba a source of economic support for a despicable system, not a tool for growing a freedom-loving middle class. In addition to these fundamental contrasts in their domestic economic structures, China and Cuba maintain other dramatic differences, not the least of which are size and location. Withholding PNTR from China, for example, would only limit our ability to reach out to the Chinese entrepreneurs who are so critical to the advancement of free markets and human rights. Defending and exporting democratic virtues is the proper goal of U.S. foreign policy.