After Cuba lost its main benefactor, the Soviet Union, its economy shrank by over 35 percent. But Cuba has recovered, and more recently, with a little help from its new friends Venezuela and China—Venezuela subsidizes Cuba's oil consumption while China provides Cuba with investment and durable goods, and buys its sugar and nickel—Cuba has avoided the regime change that occurred when East European socialist states faced similar economic crises in the late 1980s. In Cuba, housing shortages, mounting debt and deteriorating public services have produced no mass protests, no general strikes, no throngs taking to the Plaza de la Revolución to demand multiparty elections or an end to central planning. Indeed, it now seems possible that Cuba may follow the "Chinese model" of reform, whereby Communist Party control is maintained alongside a gradual establishment of free-market incentives.
But can Cuba continue along this path?