Name: China sharply criticizes US toppling of Maduro | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-05T10:11:14.000Z
Duration: 6 min 29 s
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The seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro poses a major headache for China, a close political ally of Caracas and major importer of Venezuelan oil.

The superlative

Ever since the era of authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has been China's most consistent partner in the Americas.

Beijing has staunchly supported the Maduro government.

The Friendship has helped China expand its presence in a region the US Considers its backyard.

But China's carefully developed ties to Venezuela could now be in jeopardy.

And we can discuss that now with DW China analyst Clifford Kunan.

Now China's described this relationship with Venezuela as a kind of all weather strategic partnership.

Do you expect Beijing to do anything specific right now to support Maduro?

I think when looking at this very close partnership, you have to go by, you know, what do I say and what do I do?

So the language since the, since over the last couple of days has been very much angry, talking about hegemony, talking about anger, outrage against America.

On the other hand, there hasn't been anything more than that.

So what you have here is an economic partnership, but it's not necessarily a political partnership.

It isn't something that they're going to prepare to really act on.

So China is in a difficult position certainly because it needs to show its backing for Venezuela, which has been its partner for so many years, as you mentioned, since the Chavez era.

But at the same time it's restricted in what it can do.

It's very far away for one, and it seemed very much within the American sphere of influence.

So you have a lot of the language backing the Global South Diet sort of rhetoric.

But at the same time, in terms of what it can do, it's very constrained.

You talked about the economic partnership between the two countries.

What could China do to, or what do you think it'll do to secure this oil supply gets from Venezuela?

Well, the oil supply is very interesting because basically since there's been sanctions on Venezuela for a long time imposed by the US And China's had to get around them, traders, oil traders, talk about how a lot of the oil going from Venezuela flies, say under a Malaysian flag or flags of third countries to get around the sanctions.

That's going to be extremely difficult now that since the removal of Maduro.

So there's that issue that it has to deal with a lot of.

They reckon that Venezuela owes China probably around $20 billion at this point through various oil for cash deals.

But again, if there are restrictions on the supply of oil, that's also going to be very problematic for it.

As you can see this sort of picture emerging.

This is, this kind of action is unprecedented and China likes to act in a very slow and methodical kind of way and wear things down.

But as we've seen from the, from the Trump administration, it behaves in the exact opposite way.

So securing the oil supply and securing that, that it's funding.

And also another aspect of it of is rare earths.

This is another thing that the Americans are very interested in Venezuela and that China is interested too, because a lot of competition for that.

So securing all of these is going to be a major challenge for China.

Let's look at another aspect of the relationships.

China, looking at what the US has done in Venezuela, do you think it will probably be empowered or emboldened to take action in Taiwan?

Now, this is a very interesting question because I think on one level, certainly superficially you would think it would be because this is basically acting in a kind of a lawless way by the Americans, which would seem to give the Chinese carte blanche to do what it wants in Taiwan and indeed for Russia to do what it wants in Ukraine.

So on that level it would appear to free them up.

On the other hand, it also shows that America is prepared to act unilaterally in situations where it feels that its issues, that it feels its interests are being compromised.

And it might give China more pause to act in Taiwan, to try an invasion of Taiwan, because suddenly the Americans have got, they've got, they've got a lot of power.

And I think US Power is really something that we're all learning again in the last few months that it didn't go anywhere.

It's just now it's really being wielded in a way and that could be very much something that we could see in Taiwan.

So I think, think overall, I don't think this makes the invasion of Taiwan more likely.

If anything, it'll give China pause to think about things.

You mentioned the comments China has made in response to what the US has done in Venezuela.

How do you think this whole scenario affects the relationship, the US China relationship?

Well, I think because things have been so strained over the trade war for a long time, it's certainly not going to help.

And because China does have its interests in Venezuela, it's also going to add to those tensions.

On the other hand, China doesn't have that many.

It's still, as I was saying, very far away.

It doesn't really have any major strategic interests there.

It's much more interested in South China Sea in Southeast Asia and obviously in Taiwan and in pushing its interests there.

So I think what given the way, the modus operandi that we've seen with China over the years, I can see a certain amount of pressure to have talks and to maybe to use this as leverage or something like that.

Certainly, I think the geopolitical situation in the last three days or whatever has been completely thrown wide open.

So I think we're going to have to deal with that.

And this is going to be the relationship between us and China, which is the defining geopolitical relationship in the world, is certainly going to be recalibrated, I think, as a result of this action.

DW China analyst Clifford Koonan, thank you.