What China wants: A world split in two
Ousted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife appeared in New York federal court on Monday and pleaded not guilty to multiple narco-terrorism charges after being captured by US forces in Caracas on Saturday. In the country where Maduro rules with an iron fist, few will mourn his ouster. President Donald Trump can credibly claim, as my colleagues have written, that he overthrew a demonstrably illegitimate autocrat who stole the election, crushed the opposition, and destroyed an oil-rich economy while smuggling narcotics.
Maduro’s departure also appears to be a setback for Washington’s strategic rival, China. Beijing is a major buyer of Venezuelan crude (with the caveat that it accounted for only 4% of the South American country’s imports last year) and its largest creditor. Oil trading now looks uncertain. Trump said Washington would oversee Caracas’ oil industry and sell its production to global buyers, but did not clarify whether Beijing would be on that list. This situation complicates China’s strategy in Latin America, where it plans to increase investments.
The timing of the former president’s capture also appears to be a significant intelligence error for Beijing. Just hours before the raid, a high-level delegation from China met with Maduro in Caracas, revealing deep gaps in the world’s second-largest economy’s ability to gauge strategic threats.
Still, if Washington is distracted by Venezuela, long-term geopolitical odds could turn in China’s favor. This could provide Beijing with time and space to consolidate pressure in the Indo-Pacific, especially around Taiwan and the South China Sea, two of its most sensitive strategic concerns.
The idea of a world divided into spheres of influence is extremely appealing to Beijing. This dismantles the post-World War II order that the United States helped establish and implement and aligns with President Xi Jinping’s long-held view that the world is undergoing “major changes not seen in a century.”
American officials increasingly seem to be singing this tune. In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that the United States must reassert its influence closer to home and push back against foreign powers operating in its backyard. “We will not allow a country into our hemisphere that has become a crossroads for the activities of all our enemies around the world,” he said. The administration’s recently released National Security Strategy also reflects this logic. It promises to restore America’s preeminence in its region, enacting what the Monroe Doctrine calls the “Trump Corollary” — the 1823 declaration that warned European powers against encroaching on America and was invoked to justify U.S. interventions in the region.
Beijing has already begun to take advantage of this moment. He condemned US actions as a violation of international law and called for the release of Maduro and his wife. This rhetoric is aimed at audiences in the Global South, where countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have also issued harsh statements ranging from expressions of grave concern to outright condemnations.
William Yang, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, says America’s actions are giving China “cheap ammunition” to back down the next time Washington condemns its actions in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. None of this means that China will suddenly dare to launch a war against Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own. Beijing’s decisions are determined primarily by military capacity and domestic political calculations, not by events on the other side of the world.
But America is increasingly preoccupied with its own hemisphere, which will give it greater confidence to intensify gray zone pressure in the Indo-Pacific. Military exercises around Taiwan last month were a reminder that the People’s Liberation Army has been rehearsing blockade scenarios, testing Taipei’s response by staying just below the threshold for open conflict.
The US-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific has already pushed Asia’s middle powers such as Japan, Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand to increase defense spending and deepen regional cooperation. Japan has committed to a historic military build-up, including counter-attack capabilities. Meanwhile, South Korea is strengthening its deterrence posture and India is investing in naval power to expand its sphere of influence. These moves complicate the idea of a world divided into harmonious regions ruled by powerful powers and acquiesced in by smaller powers.
The world emerging under Trump’s rule increasingly resembles a modern version of the law of the jungle, where power equals right determines which power wins. This is a game that China knows very well how to play.
The views published here are those of the author and not of EconomicTimes.com.
