Opportunity in crisis: China looks at Venezuela as ‘template’ for Taiwan!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: While US President Donald Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, kidnapping its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife have come a blow to China, the Dragon also sees in it a ‘silver line’: a justification to potentially carry out the long-pending annexation of Taiwan.
Ironically, hours before the US invaded Venezuela, China’s top envoy to Latin America Qiu Xiaoqi had met President Maduro on January 2, the media reported on Tuesday.
“I thank President Xi Jinping for his continued brotherhood, like an older brother,” Maduro told Qiu Xiaoqi, as laughter echoed through the exchange at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Hours later, however, Maduro was snatched from his bedroom by elite Delta Force commandos from the US Army and China was staring at the stark reality it had just lost one of its staunchest partners in Latin America.
China and Venezuela maintained close relations for decades, forged by a shared political ideology and mutual distrust of a world led by the United States. Through an “all-weather strategic partnership” established in 2023, Beijing pulled Caracas further into its orbit with deepened economic aid and diplomatic support.
The bulk of Venezuelan oil exports flowed to China, and Chinese companies financed extensive infrastructure projects and investments across the country, with Beijing lending billions to Caracas in recent decades, CNN reported.
Trump’s move may have upended that relationship, at least for now, raising questions over China’s preferential access to Venezuelan oil and the future of its political and economic influence in the wider region.
Beijing quickly denounced Maduro’s capture, condemning Washington for behaving like the world’s policeman. Chinese social media also erupted with excitement and discussion about the US’ actions.
By late Monday, topics linked to Trump’s capture of Maduro had received more than 650 million impressions on Weibo, China’s X-like social media platform, with many users suggesting it could offer a template for Beijing’s own potential military takeover of Taiwan. If the US can snatch a leader in their backyard, many ask, why can’t China do the same?
But while the prospect of capturing Taiwan’s leader may have stoked nationalist fever online, officially Beijing has adopted a markedly different tone, portraying the US raid as a “hegemonic act” while calling for the immediate release of Maduro and his wife.
On Monday, Xi condemned America’s “unilateral bullying” that “seriously undermines the international order.
“All countries should respect other peoples’ independent choice of development paths and abide by international law and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter – with major powers in particular setting the example,” he said.
“The US invasion has made it increasingly clear to everyone that what the United States calls a ‘rules-based international order’ is in reality nothing more than a plunder-based order driven by US interests,” state-run Xinhua news agency wrote.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Beijing stopped short of condemning Moscow or opposing the war, instead parroting Russian narrative of blaming on the United States and its NATO allies for provoking the conflict.
China emerged as the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude in recent years after Trump imposed sanctions against the South American nation in 2019. In the last few months of 2025, as much as 80 percent of its exports likely went to China.
However, most of Chinese importers of Venezuelan crude are also small, independent refiners, known as teapots, which are drawn to the oil largely because of its steep discounts.
Trump suggested that China could continue buying some Venezuelan crude, but at reduced volumes. The arrangement under Trump would likely end the deep discounts that have made the oil attractive to teapots.
In the decade since 2007, China lent Venezuela USD 62.5 billion, nearly half of all Chinese lending to South America for the period, making the country the single largest recipient of Chinese finance worldwide.
‘Taiwan not Venezuela’
Will the US attack on Venezuela embolden China to take Taiwan?
Wang Ting-yu, a lawmaker from Taiwan’s ruling party who sits on the legislature’s foreign affairs and defense committee, rejected the idea: “China is the not the US, and Taiwan is not Venezuela. Comparisons that China can carry out the same thing in Taiwan is wrong and inappropriate,” he said, adding that “China lacks feasible means.”
Although Xi Jinping has long described “reunification” with Taiwan as inevitable, experts say Beijing will continue to tread cautiously.
William Yang, senior analyst at Belgium-based think tank International Crisis Group, said the US move against Venezuela is unlikely to have “any direct and fundamental impact” on China’s calculation over a potential invasion of Taiwan.
Instead, Yang said the factors determining Beijing’s timeline to take over Taiwan boil down to China’s domestic economic situation, the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities, Taiwan’s domestic political situation, as well as Washington’s policy toward Taiwan and China.
But Washington’s actions create a new normal, he warned.
