China’s inaction following Nicolás Maduro’s capture by the United States exposes its unreliability, one expert said.
Beijing’s failure to defend its “all-weather” ally Venezuela following the United States’ capture of the nation’s leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3 illustrates its incompetence and undermines its political and economic leverage across Latin America, experts say.
This comes as U.S. President Donald Trump stated that he anticipated temporary American oversight of Venezuela’s interim government could extend for years in an interview with The New York Times published on Jan. 8.
A day earlier, a report by ABC News that cites several unnamed sources stated that the White House had asked the interim Venezuelan government to scale back its ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.
Just hours before his capture, Maduro on Jan. 2 met with Qiu Xiaoqi, the Chinese regime’s special representative for Latin American affairs, to reaffirm the close relationship between Caracas and Beijing.
In 2023, the two nations announced an “all-weather strategic partnership,” a term Beijing uses to describe its most reliable alliances that supposedly remain intact through any international turbulence.
‘Unreliable Partner’
Antonio Graceffo, a China economic analyst, said the timing of Maduro’s arrest demonstrates that Washington is not threatened by Beijing.
“China’s lack of any substantive reaction should send a message to all of China’s allies that China is an unreliable partner and that its so-called ‘all-weather strategic partnership’ with Venezuela, its iron brotherhood with Pakistan, and its no-limits partnership with Russia all have clear limits,” Graceffo told The Epoch Times.
Graceffo added that these limitations apply to China’s closest and most strategically vital partners, suggesting that even tighter constraints exist for other global allies.
“Even more so for [China’s] Latin American partners, which, while strategically consequential, have relatively low importance in China’s overall plans and strategy,” said Graceffo.
Wang Hung-jen, executive director at Taiwan’s Institute for National Policy Research, said that while Latin American nations will not completely sever political ties with China, Beijing’s inability to defend a key partner like Venezuela serves as a stark warning to other countries in the region.
“These Latin American countries are beginning to worry about how to respond if relations with Washington deteriorate, since Beijing cannot fulfill its verbal promises with actual hard power, regardless of what type of all-weather or strategic partnership exists,” Wang told The Epoch Times.
Wang suggested that these Latin American nations will likely use the current U.S. focus on Venezuela as an opportunity to realign with Washington, employing hedging strategies to maximize their political benefits.
“They will probably take a more cautious approach to new Chinese initiatives or cooperation going forward, and in terms of working with the U.S., they will begin cooperating with U.S. immigration policies and other measures to avoid having Washington resolve conflicts through military means,” Wang said.
By Jarvis Lim
