Ryan McMorrow and Joe Leahy in Beijing
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Hours before the US staged a raid to capture Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president was hosting a senior envoy from China, one of his closest international backers and most important oil buyer.
Maduro presented Qiu Xiaoqi, whom he called a special envoy of President Xi Jinping, with a statue of a horse to mark the new year and they spent hours discussing hundreds of agreements including on energy and infrastructure amid mounting US pressure.
“It’s the year of the horse and we gallop onward in perfect union,” Maduro declared.
By Sunday, Chinese outlets such as state-backed Phoenix TV had pulled video of Qiu’s final meeting with the Venezuelan president.
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Nicolás Maduro met senior envoy from China Qiu Xiaoqi hours before his capture © Reuters
The encounter highlighted Beijing’s deep geopolitical and economic interests in oil-rich Venezuela and what it stands to lose if a pro-US government hostile to China’s interests takes power in Caracas.
Beyond Venezuela, the US push to gain control of the country represents a warning shot for Beijing, which has pursued close relationships with Cuba and other Latin American countries. It could also, some argue, shift the calculus for Beijing in considering any move on Taiwan.
Staunch ideological allies since Maduro’s late predecessor Hugo Chávez took power in 1999, China and Venezuela elevated ties in 2023 to an “all-weather strategic partnership”.
Venezuela was a beachhead for Beijing’s determined courtship of the region. Washington traditionally considers Latin America its backyard, but natural resources — from soyabeans in Brazil to copper in Chile — have attracted massive Chinese investment. 
“No matter how the international landscape may evolve, China will always be a good friend and partner to Latin America,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Monday. “Latin American countries have the freedom to independently choose their friends and partners.”
Lin condemned the US military operation in Venezuela and demanded Maduro’s release. But he also said Beijing would work with any new regime in Caracas and expected its “rights and interests in Venezuela to be protected in accordance with the law”.
Column chart of Outbound direct investment ($mn) showing China pulled back on Venezuela investment from 2019
The fall of a major recipient of Chinese loans has also sparked renewed debate in China over the billions of dollars in financing Beijing has extended to developing countries.
Despite close ties, China’s economic partnership with Venezuela has a chequered history. Beijing has been forced to ease repayment terms on loans to Caracas because of the economic collapse under Maduro, with more than $100bn in total Chinese credit extended since 2000, according to AidData, a research group at the College of William & Mary.
Portions of the loans have been repaid through supplies of Venezuelan crude, but neither country has disclosed the level of outstanding debt. Analysts believe Caracas still owes Beijing about $10bn, though a Chinese oil trader who spoke to the Financial Times estimated Venezuela could owe much more.
Since 2019, Beijing has curtailed most fresh lending and direct investments in Venezuela, but some smaller scale oil and gas deals have continued.
Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University, said it was necessary for China to reconsider overseas investment, “especially on distant, far away continents”.
“The risks are becoming increasingly clear — Trump will not return China’s assets in Venezuela, he doesn’t care about international law,” said Shi.
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China’s exports to Venezuela have overtaken imports since 2020

China's imports and exports with Venezuela ($bn), 1998-2025*

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The online discussion of the loss of an ally and the unrecoverable loans had grown so loud in China by Sunday that Hu Xijin, a prominent nationalist commentator, felt the need to defend the government’s courtship of Caracas. “No matter how Venezuela changes, it will in all likelihood remain a friend of China,” Hu wrote on Weibo. 
While Trump may want to reduce Chinese influence in the western hemisphere, analysts said Washington was overlooking the extent of Beijing’s influence in the region.
China is Latin America’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $500bn in 2024. According to data provider Kpler, China accounted for the majority of Venezuela’s crude oil purchases last year, averaging about 396,000 barrels a day. But that represented less than 5 per cent of total Chinese crude imports.
Michal Meidan, a China energy expert at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, estimated that China’s small independent refiners, known as teapots, could face the biggest hit from regime change. 
She said Venezuela sent 200,000 to 500,000 barrels per day to China, with about one-third going to China’s state-backed oil majors. CNPC, one of China’s state oil companies, runs the Sinovensa joint venture with Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. Shanghai-listed shares of CNPC dropped more than 4 per cent on Monday morning.
Zhao Hai, an international relations scholar at Beijing’s state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences think-tank, said the return of a raw power-based international order was “the biggest threat to Chinese interests around the world since we are the world’s largest trading country”.
Yet analysts said US comments on the attack on Venezuela, which secretary of state Marco Rubio has said was needed to curb the activities of America’s “adversaries” in its hemisphere, would make it easier for China to justify aggression in its region around Taiwan and the South China Sea.  
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to invade it if necessary. It also claims vast swaths of the South China Sea.
“Watching the international community accept recent US actions will almost certainly convince Beijing that a military move against Taiwan would be far easier for the world to swallow,” wrote Tong Zhao, a senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China, on X.
The events of the past few days underline the chaotic nature of Trump’s foreign policy.
“The whole Latin American region is now shocked by Venezuela’s situation,” said Ma Wei, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank.
“Trump proved with his actions that the Monroe Doctrine [that sets out Latin America as a US sphere of influence] has really returned.”
Additional contributions from Cheng Leng and Wenjie Ding in Beijing, Joe Daniels in Rio de Janeiro and Edward White in Shanghai. Data visualisation by Haohsiang Ko in Hong Kong
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026. All rights reserved.

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If nothing else, the use in one article of "springboard" and "beachhead" which are two entirely different things emphasises the problems arising from mixed metaphors.
(Edited)
"China claims Taiwan as its territory and has threatened to invade it if necessary. It also claims vast swaths of the South China Sea."
Should this not read: Vowed to defend it against Japanese re-invasion.
If the US can station troops in Japan, why not have China place troops in South America? That is true deterrence
A gift from God for Russia - the most useful possible ally for China in an increasingly unstable world
The United States just made China and its little Taiwanese games look like the petulant child that IT IS.
It does seem that the $100 billion invested in Venezuela by China is going to go up in a puff of smoke. The oil shipments will now come to an abrupt end. That’s the problem with investing in corrupt dictatorships. Expropriation of those assets can happen at any time. And there’s no legal recourse.

People can find a different angle to the on one produced by the FT in the above
piece, Produced by Toronto Globe and Mail. (Main business paper of Canada)Pushing China out of Venezuela could restart the trade war between China and the US.
(Edited)
There is the short term and then there is a long term and a muddle in the middle. The United States is not winning any friends in the region or for that matter in Asia and Africa with this action in Venezuela and let’s see what’s to come around the carribbean basin. It is ripping apart the post World II order it created itself - doing it but its own broadcasts for oil - validates all the conspiracy theories about Iraq, remember Mossadeq in Iran, the partnership with the Al Saud and so on. At least in the past there was a moral compass, a values based reference, even though it was expediently breached at convenience. Now it’s no holds barred. Pls then explain to the world why would a Chinese dominated new world order be such an evil end? Not self evident with the death of the Enlightenment in the West - which I for one see as tragic and scary, for it truly was human civilisational progress being put to its death by the rise of proto fascists in the West.
Nice comment, truly. But what modern enlightenment western values in particular do you esteem so high? As seen from movements on the right in the US, Europe and LATAM, many, if not most, people are not happy with the end results of the so called enlightenment values. Why should people hold on tightly to a Kantian universalist rights based system when it hasn’t been working for them and makes them miserable? Separately, much of the world adopted this rights based system because the strongest country was using it and advocating it and people wanted to improve their lot. But, now that China is even stronger in ways than the U.S. and is convincing others to join them, it would seem prudent for the U.S. to maintain its strength via geopolitical / economic maneuvers like this attack in Venezuela so as not to lose even more influence. That loss of influence would be even more detrimental to the remnants of the rights based system. It’s not pretty, though neither was our intentional targeting of civilians in WWII, but people will seemingly forgive so long as you remain on top.
China is peeing its pants at the raw display of US military might of US power. CCP is living on borrowed time, only a matter of time before the US topples the CCP.
Let me think China stops RE exports tomorrow and US collapse the week after

Now how has the power ?
Not to mention US govt debt
Come and take it!
China is the new USSR.
It will collapse in a spectacular way.
The CCP will fold within 24 hours of us having carriers on their doorstep, guaranteed.
And then what? The US runs a country as big as itself with 4x the population??
Looks to me the US is the one that is about to fracture

China I would image would be quite happy ensuring the Venezuela militias are funded and armed and bog down any US atempt to take Venezuelan oil
The only consolation left to the poor, decadent, irrelevant Brits is delusional thinking
Make China Poor Again.
Mate the industrial game is over a weak service economy like the US doesn't stand a chance

China stops RE tomorrow and the US and the West is toast
China's "stealth killer" JY27V missile was 100% neutralized. As was Russia's S300. Venezuela's radar screens became saturated with jamming signals. It was impossible to find aircraft or ships. The "missile wall" China has said would prevent the US from defending Taiwan has been exposed as useless. Every country with Russian or Chinese air or naval defense systems, including Russia and China just learned those systems are no good against the US.
China is a paper tiger, after we're done in the western hemisphere we'll run the same playbook on the CCP, they'll fold in less than 24 hours once we have our carriers on their doorstep.
Fake news for true foals
Whatever Venezuela had on hand ready to use by awake and authorized forces certainly was not effective. All politics aside, it’s good for the U.S. to use its capabilities every once in awhile and verify they work. Yeah, it reveals what we have, but that can be useful to scare emboldened adversaries.
Huge American weakness on display. Back in 1956, all Eisenhower had to do was to stop the Suez war with a couple of telephone calls. No armadas hanging around anywhere, no jets flying hither and thither. No wasteful expenditure running into trillions, etc, etc.

Such was the awesome authority of the US; just a phone call would do the job. .....once upon a time
The focus has all been on Maduro and Trump.

There is more going on and Marco Rubio is a big part of it. He knows Latin America cold. By taking out Maduro and ending Venezuelan oil shipments, there are a couple big losers:

1. Loser #1: Cuba
Cuba is dependent on free oil from Venezuela. This is now cut off. The Communists in Cuba are circling the drain........and no direct action by the US against Cuba.

2. Loser #2: Communist China
Communist China is making big inroads into Latin America. Well, Rubio is starting to counter that with the Panama Canal and Maduro. And there will be more response.
China is finished, we will topple them in the next few years!
With what social media
Loser #3: Russia
Venezuela oil floods market and causes a price drop starving Russia of vital foreign currency. Russian economy now dependent on matryoshka doll exports.
(Edited)
The silver lining here is of course that the Russian alliance becomes all the more precious for Beijing - bounteous supplies of energy, minerals, agriculturals and fertilizers by land - from one of the few countries Washington will not try to dominate or devastate
A captive market of consumers who absolutely hate the supplier!
Such absolute nonsense from someone who knows less about Russia than about Uranus!
Learning Chinese has become very fashionable and Russians and traveling all over the PRC
Yes the Russians have a lot of foresight. They know Russia will be Chinese soon.
Like the UK will be American? No, actually, the US would chew it, then spit it out
It’s good Russians are learning to speak the language of their new master.
(Edited)
Nothing funnier then the denizens of that ultimate craven poodle kingdom referring to anyone else as a colony - as Starmer is literally lost for words as he awaits instructions from Washington - which no longer even bothers to call
Comrade, let’s have that conversation in a decade by when China will have retaken all the land Russia stole (and then some?). I don’t think this will go Russia’s way.
(Edited)
Such bilge, from the ultimate craven former Empire - whose erstwhile master hads turned him out in the street, shivering cold and hungry...
Maduro cosying up to China was the definition of FAFO.
CCP will face the same fate soon!
(Edited)
“Watching the international community accept recent US actions will almost certainly convince Beijing that a military move against Taiwan would be far easier for the world to swallow,” wrote Tong Zhao, a senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China, on X.
Precisely this.

A prominent news commentator in Taiwan has suggested that Maduro's abduction showed that the Trump administration was motivated not by some desire to do justice to the Venezuelan people, but by its own interests.

Moreover, the commentator, Fan Qifei, suggested that the US move against Venezuela should not be understood as a signal of US resolve to serve as "the world's policeman", much less a desire to mount a military intervention on behalf of Taiwan in the event of a PRC attack on the island.

C.f.: 記者郭運興／台北報導 [Reporter: Kuo Yin-hsing in Taipei], 分析川普打委內瑞拉原因　范琪斐：同邏輯是否也會接受中國管台灣？[Analysis of Trump's rationale for attacking Venezuela--Fan Qifei wonders whether same logic signals US willingness to allow China to control Taiwan], ET Today, 5 January 2026, https://www.ettoday.net/news/20260105/3095531.htm
A prominent news commentator in Taiwan has suggested that Maduro's abduction showed that the Trump administration was motivated not by some desire to do justice on behalf of the Venezuelan people, but by its own interests.

C.f.: 記者郭運興／台北報導 [Reporter: Kuo Yun-hsing in Taipei]
Mea culpa.
Doesn't matter, when we finish our job in the western hemisphere we'll run the same playbook on the CCP. They'll fold within 24 hours of us having carriers on their doorstep.
Mmm keyboard bravado. Let's hope we don't end up in that version of the world and both the US and China keep their heads.
Trump is just giving away the entire region.
This article should be promoted way more. People have derided this military action and summarily dismissed Venezuelan's joy by saying the now over-used catchphrase: 'Trump only cares about the oil'. They say this as if were some novel insight and as if Trump hasn't said it explicitly now for months. Guess what? Venezuelans aren't dumb! They know that and don't care! Ordinary citizens haven't seen any benefit from their country's oil, with profits being siphoned by the political class and their elite allies (enchufados). It's now been widely reported that the Trump admin told oil companies that if they wanted to recuperate their previous investments and capital, they would need to invest heavily in rebuilding the dilapidated infrastructure. Billions in foreign investment, thousands of jobs, and no evil dictator? Sounds like a great deal for a people that has experienced starvation and fear for over two decades! Also, like this article shows, China and Russia weren't there for the beaches! All the loans and 'ideological' support was born from their want of oil!

Venezuelans don't care about Americans profiting from their oil. They're probably glad they have the oil, because otherwise no one would have intervened in a regime that is antithetical to democracy and human rights!

People need to stop with the TDS and understand that, while yes, this is a stark departure from recent norms, this stands to be a net positive for everyone involved (sans China/Russia/Iran).
Thank you for your comments, well put. Surprisingly minimal pro-CCP comments so far. Maybe many of the bogus subscription/CCP commentators are directly funded by money from those teapots now put out of business. A great time for freedom in Venezuela. I still remember Chavez referring to Bush as the great satan at the UN back in 2002. He took a wealthy petro country with oil at historically highs prices… and destroyed it. Socialism is evil but CCP-fascism/socialism fusion, is far more dangerous to the free world.
Hear hear. People will defend Russia on the back of so-called NATO encroachment, but fail to recognize what’s been going on in the US’ own backyard.
The Chinese are Realists in the best sense of the word. They'll just get the oil and minerals from elsewhere.

China is sharply focused on economic development, not empire games and forever wars. It can well see where that kind of conduct leads to the detriment of one's own economy and welfare.

Good luck to the US China might well say- try Greenland next!
And FT doesn't think that anyone in the administration or US military hasn't anticipated this ?
Well . . . . Remember that time when Trump was confused by toilet paper?
China is too weak too confront the US globally. If it tries it will end up like the Soviet Union broke, defined and with huge internal problems.
China is controlled by a problematic regime. That said, China today is NOTHING like the Soviet Union was back in the day.

It lies at the centre of global supply chains, plays host to many trillions in foreign investments and controls a navy that is bigger than that of the United States.
R.I.P. TACO 2025-26
(Edited)
TAKO 2026 : Trump Always Kidnaps Opponents?
FAFO 2026-2028
TACO with chilli sauce
(Edited)
TACO didn't even see out 2025. He said he would impose tariffs on every country on Earth and he did. I don't see the chicken out part. By the way, the guy who came up with TACO says exactly the same thing.

I am not a Trump fan but this TACO nonsense only increases misunderstanding of him.
Yep.
TACO-Iran
TACO-Maduro
TACO-ISIS
China next
Maybe not - Taiwan is a functional democracy that isn’t accused of shipping drugs and people from A to B, and it the TRA provides a powerful backstop against Chinese aggression.

Plus, Donchik has shown to be an unpredictable rogue with his cavalier use of the military, so he might actually come to Taiwan’s aid if it were invaded.

Again, all maybes.
Strategic ambiguity continua.