With Venezuela raid, US tells China to keep away from the Americas

Written by: Michael Martina, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Among the many goals of the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week was to send a message to China: Stay away from America.

For at least two decades, Beijing has sought to exert influence in Latin America not only to pursue economic opportunities but also to gain a strategic foothold on the doorstep of its biggest geopolitical rival.

China’s progress, from satellite tracking stations in Argentina to a port in Peru to economic support for Venezuela, has troubled successive US administrations, including Donald Trump.

Several Trump administration officials told Reuters that the US president’s move against Maduro was partly aimed at countering China’s ambitions and that Beijing’s days of racking up debt to buy cheap oil from Venezuela were “over”.

‘WE DON’T WANT YOU THERE’

Trump made that message clear in a meeting with oil executives on Friday, expressing his discomfort with China and Russia being “next door neighbors.”

“I told China and Russia, ‘We get along very well with you, we love you very much, we don’t want you there, you won’t be there,'” Trump said. He said he would now tell China that “we are open for trade” and that “they can buy all the oil they want from us or the United States.”

The success of the raid in the early morning hours of January 3, in which US commandos entered Caracas and captured the Venezuelan president and his wife, was a blow to China’s interests and prestige.

The air defense systems, which US forces quickly neutralized, were provided by China and Russia, and Trump said 30 to 50 million barrels of oil covered by sanctions, most of which previously would have been sent to Chinese ports, would now be sent to the US.

Analysts say Maduro’s capture reveals Beijing’s limited ability to enforce its will in America.

Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said the attack exposed the gap between China’s “great power rhetoric and its actual reach in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Beijing can protest diplomatically, but it cannot protect its partners or assets when Washington decides to apply direct pressure,” he said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters that the United States rejected “unilateral, illegal and bullying actions”.

Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said, “China and Latin American and Caribbean countries continue friendly exchanges and cooperation. No matter how the situation develops, we will continue to be friends and partners.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

But “China should be concerned about its position in the Western Hemisphere,” an administration official said, adding that its partners in the region are increasingly realizing that China cannot protect them.

TRUMP’S UNCERTAIN CHINA POLICY

The Trump administration’s policy towards Beijing appears contradictory; On the one hand, there are concessions aimed at calming the trade war, and on the other, more assertive US support for Taiwan.

The Venezuela operation seemed to turn US policy in a more hawkish direction.

In fact, the timing of the US attack increased Beijing’s embarrassment.

Just hours before his ouster, Maduro met in Caracas with China’s special envoy for Latin America, Qiu Xiaoqi, for the last time before becoming a prisoner of the United States.

Another US official said the meeting, recorded on camera at a time when US military forces were ready to launch a covert operation, showed that Beijing was blind.

“If they had known, they wouldn’t have made it so public,” the US official told Reuters.

Beijing has poured money into Venezuela’s oil refineries and infrastructure for years, providing an economic lifeline after the United States and its allies tightened sanctions starting in 2017.

Alongside Russia, China has provided funding and equipment to the Venezuelan military, including recently radar arrays capable of detecting advanced US military aircraft. These systems did little to prevent the raid, which US officials boasted had no casualties.

“Any country around the world that has Chinese defense equipment is checking their air defenses and wondering how safe they really are from the United States,” said Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank.

“They also realize that China’s diplomatic assurances to Iran and Venezuela resulted in zero meaningful protection when the US military arrived.”

China is now investigating what went wrong with these defenses to bolster its own systems, according to a person briefed on the intelligence.

CHINA FACES OTHER REGIONAL RISKS

China may soon come under pressure elsewhere in the region.

It is trying to expand its influence in Cuba, and the United States suspects Beijing is running an intelligence-gathering operation there. China denies this but last year promised better intelligence sharing with Cuba.

In the days following the Venezuela operation, Trump said that U.S. military intervention in Cuba, which was suffering from the loss of Venezuelan oil, was probably unnecessary because Cuba appeared poised to collapse on its own.

The Trump administration also continues to exclude Chinese companies from port operations around the Panama Canal, the critical waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

A State Department official said the United States “remains concerned” about Chinese influence near the canal but appreciates Panama’s actions to prevent it, including exiting Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and overseeing Panamanian ports concessions under contract with Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.

Although China has lagged behind in the region, analysts warn that increased US military involvement in Venezuela or a deterioration in the security situation could open the door for Beijing to reassert itself.

Daniel Russel, a former State Department official who now works in the Asia Community, said the dramatic shift in Washington under the Trump administration from a rule of law stance to a “Western Hemisphere-focused spheres of influence mentality” could benefit China.

“Beijing wants Washington to accept that Asia is in China’s sphere of influence and no doubt hopes that the United States will be stalemated in Venezuela,” he said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina, Trevor ‌Hunnicutt and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Bo Erickson; Editing by Don Durfee and Rod Nickel)