Reply #98: Yes, NSMA. Why China and not Cuba?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

I've been to China. People are afraid to speak openly there, and every university official has a Communist Party "shadow" whose job it is to make sure that he stays on the straight and narrow.

Yet Americans are free, nay, encouraged to invest and travel in China. Illegal emigres from China are mostly deported as "economic refugees," while illegal emigres from Cuba automatically get refugee status if they can make landfall.

Why is that?

Could it be because China offers opportunities to set up sweatshops free of labor and environmental laws and lets American fast food chains establish outlets in major cities and Cuba doesn't?

Our government wouldn't be that mercenary--or would it? By any measure, China's human rights record is as bad as Cuba's, and much worse if you count the Cultural Revolution. So why is it "China good, Cuba bad"?