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As Venezuela and the United States teeter on the brink of war, China has been vocal in condemning US actions. In Beijing’s view, Washington’s escalation – which includes seizing Venezuelan oil tankers, striking alleged drug-smuggling boats and imposing a blockade off the Venezuelan coast – is a textbook example of American unilateralism, infringing on another country’s sovereignty and violating the United Nations Charter.
During a December 17 call with his Venezuelan counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced opposition to US “unilateral bullying” and expressed his support for Venezuela’s right to “defend its sovereignty and national dignity”.
Yet, Beijing has failed to offer Caracas anything beyond rhetoric. China is clearly wary of falling into a geopolitical trap and its inaction demonstrates the limits of its influence in Latin America.
Engagement with Latin America
For more than two decades, China has pursued an expansion of economic relations with Latin American countries. As a result, today it is South America’s top trading partner; it is also the second-largest trading partner of Mexico, one of the US’s closest allies in the region.
China’s engagement with Latin American countries is fuelled by the high degree of complementarity between their economies. Agricultural goods – notably soya beans from Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay – have improved China’s food security, especially during its trade war with the US. Meanwhile, minerals such as lithium carbonate from Chile, Argentina and Bolivia have become indispensable to China’s rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) industry.
In recent years, Chinese EV exports to Latin America have surged, growing by 55 percent in 2023 alone. The region has not only alleviated China’s overcapacity problem, but has also offered Chinese telecommunication technology, such as Huawei’s 5G – which has long been spurned by Western countries – a market. Currently, Huawei’s 5G equipment is present in most Latin American countries.
The US, traditionally viewing Latin America as its back yard, has been naturally suspicious and hostile towards China’s growing influence in the region. In February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – an outspoken China hawk who has previously labelled the Communist Party of China an “evil, genocidal regime” – embarked on a diplomatic blitz across the region. Declaring that he was on a mission to “counter the [CPC’s] influence in the Western Hemisphere”, he sought to persuade several Latin American countries to scale back ties with China.
Despite being unable to offer a compelling alternative model of economic cooperation and opting for extortion tactics through tariffs, Washington nonetheless holds the upper hand in this battle for influence. For example, although most countries in the region have been economically enticed to adhere to the one China policy, recognising that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, the region continues to be the last bastion of diplomatic support for Taiwan, with seven Latin American countries maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan over China.
This week, the US achieved a resounding victory when Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura won the presidential elections in Honduras; during his campaign, he pledged to sever diplomatic ties with China and re-establish formal relations with Taiwan.
Over the past year, under the Trump administration, several Latin American countries have yielded to US pressure to limit economic ties with China.
In February, Panama formally withdrew from China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Then in March, the Panama Canal’s Hong Kong-based operator announced that it was selling most of its stake to a consortium of American companies – a move that followed Trump’s allegation that the vital waterway was controlled by China. In December, Mexico announced it would slap tariffs of up to 50 percent on Chinese goods, starting on January 1.
In Venezuela, US pressure is not related to its close ties to China, as it has more to do with US domestic politics: Rubio is seeking to fulfil a long-held political agenda to please opposition-minded Venezuelan and Cuban American constituencies.
Nevertheless, any regime change in Caracas would certainly hurt China’s interests. As the biggest customer of Venezuelan crude oil, China has a vested interest in maintaining Venezuela’s peace and stability. While China itself is not dependent on Venezuelan oil – with Venezuela not even ranking among its top 10 crude suppliers – the US’s interception of Venezuelan oil tankers nonetheless undermines China’s energy strategy, which aims to avoid becoming over-reliant on any single energy supplier.
Monroe Doctrine 2.0 or a trap?
China views the escalation in Venezuela not only through the economic lens, but also through a geopolitical one. The larger context of US global power projection is important.
In the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS), the Trump administration declared that the days of the US acting as the world’s policeman are over, advocating instead for a return to the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century foreign policy strategy which sought to block any outside interference in the Americas that could infringe on US interests.
Although notably, the NSS does not designate China as the greatest threat to the US, it nonetheless states that the US government will maintain a military capable of deterring Chinese ambitions on Taiwan by military means.
This document, along with escalating US-Venezuela tensions, has sent mixed signals to China. On the one hand, the US appears to deprioritise competition with China and instead focus on reasserting its hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.
On the other hand, it has not made any significant steps to indicate disengagement in Asia; for example, its military bases in South Korea and Japan remain fully operational.
Beijing fears that Washington might be trying to lure it into a false sense of security with its rhetoric and an ostensible geopolitical shift; thus, it remains cautious.
Following the NSS’s release, China put out a policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean. Likely a response to recent events, the paper reflects Beijing’s attempt to bring the fight to the US’s doorstep.
However, the policies and strategies laid out in the document share the same shortcomings that Chinese foreign policy has always had: they offer support that is more symbolic than substantive. China’s attempt to rally the Global South under the banner of opposing US hegemony and to foster grievance-based unity, seriously falls short of its mark when confronted with American military might.
In this context and given Venezuela’s limited economic value to China and its geopolitical distance, the Chinese government would not commit any resources to defending the Latin American country.
In the event of a US invasion, China would likely leverage it to promote its vision of a multipolar world, and position itself as the champion of international law and the UN Charter. While it would consider the US being bogged down in a protracted war a positive development, China would almost certainly not come to Venezuela’s aid.
A US toppling of the Venezuelan government, however, would expose the limits of Chinese power in the region. Such a scenario would undoubtedly prompt many Latin American countries to reconsider whether aligning themselves with China is a good idea when an aggressive US is so close by.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
