China blasts U.S. murder charges against Raúl Castro, calls for restraint

China has moved sharply to defend Raúl Castro after the United States unsealed murder charges tied to the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, saying Washington was abusing judicial means and pressuring Cuba. The response put Beijing squarely against a new U.S. escalation that has turned a decades-old air tragedy into the latest front in the fight over Havana.

The U.S. Department of Justice said on May 20 that it unsealed a superseding indictment charging Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz, 94, and five other Cuban officials in connection with the Feb. 24, 1996 shootdown of two unarmed U.S. civilian aircraft over international waters. The case centers on the deaths of four people, including three Americans, and includes murder and conspiracy counts.

Beijing answered the next day with unusually blunt language. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the United States should stop using sanctions and the judicial apparatus as tools of oppression against Cuba and should refrain from threatening force. The message went beyond a routine diplomatic objection and signaled that China sees the indictment as part of a wider pressure campaign rather than a narrow criminal case.

That stance matters because the U.S. move landed in the middle of a fresh sanctions push against Cuba. Washington had already issued a May 1 executive order, titled Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy, followed by additional sanctions on May 7. The White House said the order targets entities, people, or affiliates supporting the Cuban regime’s security apparatus or complicit in repression.

For Havana, China’s reaction offers political cover at a sensitive moment. Cuba is still dealing with shortages, blackouts, and a shrinking economic cushion, and Beijing’s intervention helps frame the clash as one more example of unilateral U.S. pressure. It also suggests the indictment could harden China’s view that Washington is willing to blend criminal law, sanctions, and foreign-policy pressure into a single strategy against a strategic partner.

The 1996 shootdown remains one of the most volatile events in modern U.S.-Cuba relations. Brothers to the Rescue flew civilian missions from Miami to spot rafters and help Cuban migrants, and the downing of its planes still carries deep weight in both Cuba and the exile community. Russia also condemned the U.S. move, underscoring that Washington’s new charges have now pulled in more than one outside power, just as the old case reopens a familiar conflict between Havana and its critics.