As U.S. special forces finalize plans for a bold nighttime operation into the heart of Venezuela’s capital, President Nicolas Maduro posed for photos with China’s Latin American envoy and lavished praise on Beijing’s leadership.
“I would like to thank President Xi Jinping for continuing our brotherly relationship,” Maduro told Chinese diplomat Qiu Xiaoqi, as laughter echoed during the exchange at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Hours later, Maduro was snatched from his bedroom by elite special forces from the U.S. military’s Delta Force, leaving China to face the harsh reality that it had just lost one of its most stalwart partners in Latin America.
China and Venezuela have maintained close ties for decades, built on a shared political ideology and mutual distrust of the U.S.-led world.
Through an “all-weather strategic partnership” established in 2023, Beijing has stepped up economic aid and diplomatic support to draw Caracas further into its orbit.
Most of Venezuela’s oil exports go to China, where Chinese companies are financing a wide range of infrastructure projects and investments across the country, and the Chinese government has lent Caracas billions of dollars in recent decades.
President Trump’s move appears to upend that relationship, at least for now, raising questions about China’s preferential access to Venezuelan oil and the future of the country’s political and economic influence in the broader region.
The Chinese government was quick to condemn Maduro’s detention, accusing the US government of acting like the world’s police officer. There was also excitement and debate over the US action on Chinese social media.
If the United States can kidnap leaders in its own backyard, many wonder why China can’t do the same.
By late Monday, topics related to President Trump’s capture of President Maduro had received more than 650 million impressions on Weibo, China’s X-like social media platform, with many users suggesting it could provide a template for a potential military takeover of Taiwan by the Chinese government.
China’s ruling Communist Party claims the autonomous democracy as its own territory, even though it has never ruled it, and has vowed to absorb the island by force if necessary. In recent years, the Chinese government has stepped up its military threats against Taiwan, including simulating a blockade.
But while the prospect of detaining Taiwan’s leader may have raised nationalist fevers online, officially Beijing has adopted a markedly different tone, painting the U.S. attack as a “hegemonic act” and calling for the Maduros’ immediate release.
On Monday, Xi further slammed the US government during a meeting with the visiting Irish Prime Minister, accusing it of “unilateral bullying” that “severely undermines international order”.
“All countries should respect the independent choice of development paths of other peoples and abide by the purposes and principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, and major countries in particular should lead by example,” he said.
State media has spent little time highlighting the incident and highlighting what it calls US hypocrisy. “The US invasion has made it increasingly clear to everyone that what the US calls the ‘rules-based international order’ is actually nothing more than a plunder-based order driven by US interests,” a commentary in the state-run Xinhua News Agency wrote.
Social media accounts associated with the People’s Liberation Army focused on China’s strength and security, warning that its military weakness could lead to a crisis.
“Without strengthened core capabilities, it will be impossible to deter predatory great powers, much less protect the security of our citizens when a crisis suddenly erupts,” the paper said.
But Beijing’s rhetoric about sovereignty is conspicuously absent in other conflicts.
When Russia, another strategic partner, invaded Ukraine in 2022, China did not condemn Moscow or oppose the war, but instead parroted Russia’s narrative that the United States and its NATO allies were to blame for the conflict.
China has emerged as the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil in recent years after President Trump imposed sanctions on the South American country in 2019. Up to 80% of Venezuelan crude oil is likely to go to China in the final months of 2025, according to a market update released last month by data analysis firm Kpler.
However, oil investors and analysts believe that U.S. actions against Venezuela are unlikely to have a major impact on China’s oil supplies, given the country’s relatively modest production and the role of non-state buyers.
Under Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s oil production has fallen by two-thirds from its peak, to about 1 million barrels a day. This is a level that is completely at odds with its status as the holder of the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Most of China’s importers of Venezuelan crude are also small, independent refiners known as Teapots, attracted primarily to the crude’s deep discounts.
President Trump has indicated that China may continue to buy some Venezuelan oil, but the amount may be reduced. The deal under President Trump is likely to eliminate the deep discounts that made crude oil attractive to teapots.
Beyond energy, the Chinese government praises Venezuela as “an important trading partner and investment destination for China in Latin America.”
According to research by the Washington-based Stimson Center, China lent $62.5 billion to Venezuela in the 10 years starting in 2007, nearly half of China’s loans to South America at the time, making Venezuela the world’s largest recipient of Chinese finance.
Now, as talk inevitably turns to whether a U.S. attack on Venezuela will embolden China, many in Taiwan are dismissing such a threat.
Taiwan ruling party lawmaker Wang Tingyu, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, rejected the idea that China could follow the US precedent and attack Taiwan.
“China is not the United States, and Taiwan is not Venezuela. The comparison that China could do the same thing with Taiwan is wrong and inappropriate,” Wang said, adding, “China has had no shortage of hostility toward Taiwan militarily. What China lacks is viable means.”
China’s Mr. Xi has long said “unification” with Taiwan is inevitable, but experts expect Beijing to continue to tread carefully.
William Yang, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based think tank, said U.S. actions against Venezuela are unlikely to have a “direct and fundamental impact” on China’s calculations about a possible invasion of Taiwan.
Instead, Yang said that the factors determining the timeline for China’s occupation of Taiwan ultimately depend on China’s domestic economic situation, the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army, Taiwan’s domestic political situation, and U.S. policy toward Taiwan and China.
But he warned that Washington’s actions will create a new normal.
“The important thing for Taiwan is that relying on military options to pursue certain foreign policy goals will probably become the new normal and the new reality around the world,” Yang told CNN. “Taiwan should take this seriously and start thinking about ways to improve Taiwan’s defense capabilities and improve its ability to maintain deterrence against China.”
Further afield in Latin America, questions remain about the future of China’s long-term strategy in a region that Washington has traditionally considered its “backyard.”
Dan Wang, China director at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said that although Maduro’s ouster represents a “major setback” for China’s broader strategic influence in the region, it may continue to leverage investments in South America, particularly in the power supply and communications sectors, as any effort to exclude Chinese companies from critical infrastructure projects could lead to social instability.
Yang agreed, saying Beijing would likely prioritize minimizing the impact on its economic interests rather than engaging in full-scale geopolitical competition with the United States in the region.
