China faces mounting risks as U.S. action in Venezuela threatens Beijing’s energy strategy, overseas investments, and long-held claims of sovereign immunity.
The capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3 sent shockwaves far beyond Latin America. Analysts say the more consequential aftershocks are being felt in China, which had significant investments in Venezuela’s oil sector and made loans to the Maduro regime.
For nearly two decades, Venezuela has been a critical node in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) foreign strategy, supplying discounted oil while serving as a geopolitical foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
Maduro’s sudden removal—and Washington’s rapid move to reshape Venezuela’s political and energy future—now threatens both pillars.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it was shocked by Maduro’s capture, according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency. U.S. special forces acted only hours after Maduro met a Chinese delegation on Jan. 2.
China and Venezuela elevated ties to an “all-weather strategic partnership” in 2023, according to Chinese state media.
When Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Maduro in Moscow in May 2025, the relationship was described as an “ironclad friendship” by Xinhua.
China economics analyst Antonio Graceffo said in a Jan. 6 op-ed for The Epoch Times that Beijing had lent about $60 billion or more to Venezuela between 2007 and 2015, with additional loans extending from the start of the Hugo Chávez regime in 1999 through the end of the Maduro regime.
When global oil prices collapsed after 2014, Venezuela’s economy spiraled into crisis.
By late 2017, Caracas declared a debt restructuring, and international rating agencies deemed it to be in selective default. Since then, Venezuela has released no comprehensive debt data. Estimates of its external liabilities range from $150 billion to $170 billion, including roughly $60 billion in defaulted bonds. How much of that is owed to China remains unclear.
Hidden Oil Trade
Chinese customs data suggest Venezuela has become marginal to China’s energy imports, according to a Jan. 5 article by Chinese state-controlled media Sina, which reported that Venezuelan oil accounted for less than 1 percent of China’s imports in recent years.
However, international shipping data tell a different story.
Since U.S. sanctions intensified in 2019, Chinese state firms halted direct purchases. Instead, Venezuelan crude continued flowing to China through ship-to-ship transfers and re-labeling schemes, often via Malaysia, and sometimes disguised as Brazilian or Iranian blends. Tanker-tracking data show that between 2022 and 2025, China imported an average of 300,000 to 700,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil or about 4 percent of its total imports.
In some months, China absorbed as much as 80 percent of Venezuela’s exports.
Last month, Venezuelan crude arrivals in China were expected to exceed 600,000 barrels per day, according to analysts at tanker tracker Vortexa. This underscores Beijing’s continued dependence despite official silence.
