World & Conflict · The Record
China says it 'firmly supports Cuba'; UN backing for the embargo resolution fell from 187 to 165
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian pledged support in July 2026, and CiberCuba reported 136 countries backing an urgent debate as broad international support. UN News's tallies of the embargo resolution itself show the yes column falling by 22 votes and abstentions rising from one to twelve.
China's Foreign Ministry said in July 2026 that Beijing "firmly supports Cuba in defending national sovereignty and standing against external interference," and that the United States should "stop its blockade, coercion and pressuring against Cuba at once," according to the transcript of a regular press conference published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and attributed there to spokesperson Lin Jian. The word the spokesperson used for the US measures is not the word the UN texts use: the resolution the General Assembly votes on each year describes an economic, commercial and financial embargo.
The response was reported alongside a number. CiberCuba, a Cuban news outlet, wrote that "136 países respaldaron la apertura de un debate urgente sobre el embargo estadounidense contra Cuba" - 136 countries backed the opening of an urgent debate on the US embargo against Cuba - and characterised this as "amplio apoyo internacional", broad international support. In the excerpt available to Daily Pol, the 136 figure is the outlet's, not a number placed in the spokesperson's mouth.
The checkable record for that figure is what the General Assembly actually did at the July 2026 sitting. The UN Meetings Coverage press release for it is headed "General Assembly Resumes Debate on Ending Cuban Embargo, as Havana Leads Outcry against 'Cruel' Extraterritorial Ambitions of United States". UN News reported that the Assembly "voted to debate United States sanctions against Cuba", at Havana's request. What members decided was whether to take the item up again, not whether the embargo should end.
The votes on the substantive resolution are reported separately, and by a different route: UN News, rather than the General Assembly's own press release for the ballot. UN News reported that the resolution was adopted by 165 votes in favour, seven against and twelve abstentions, with the United States, Israel, Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, North Macedonia and Ukraine voting no. The year before, UN News reported, the measure passed with 187 in favour, two against - the United States and Israel - and one abstention, Moldova.
Analysis, drawn only from the two tallies UN News reported: between them the yes column fell by 22, the no column grew by five, and the count abstaining grew by eleven, from one to twelve. Nine of the twelve abstainers - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland and Romania - sit in central or eastern Europe; the other three are Costa Rica, Ecuador and Morocco. Moldova, the sole abstainer in the earlier vote, appears on the later list too, so eleven states moved into the abstention column rather than twelve. The three figures below are three different measurements, and only two of them are counts of support for the resolution.
Beijing's declared position and its commercial conduct toward Havana are recorded in different places. Fundación Andrés Bello published a report headed "China Cancels Trade Agreements with Cuba Due to Lack of Market Reforms and Unpaid Debts", saying the cancelled sugar arrangement had run to "more than 400,000 tons annually" and that Chinese firms including Huawei were owed for machinery, technology and vehicles. Daily Pol could not test that account against a primary document, and reports it as the foundation's account rather than as established fact. Chinese state media framed the July statement as the ministry did: the Global Times headline reads "China firmly supports Cuba in opposing foreign interference: Chinese FM on US escalation of sanctions".
One test follows from the record, checkable by 31 December 2026. If the General Assembly puts the embargo resolution to a recorded vote before that date, the abstention column is the figure to read: on the movement UN News documented, from one abstention to twelve, a recorded count above twelve would confirm the erosion described here, and a count of twelve or fewer would refute it. Daily Pol did not seek comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, the United States Mission to the United Nations or Cuba's Permanent Mission; this piece rests on published transcripts and UN reporting.