The US intervention in Venezuela tests China’s influence in Latin America and puts the countries of the region between a rock and a hard place, pressured by Washington but reluctant to turn their backs on Beijing due to the enormous commercial interests at stake.
Hours before being captured by US troops, Maduro met with the strong man of Chinese diplomacy for Latin American affairs, special envoy Qiu Xiaoqi, whose presence at that precise moment in Venezuela indicates that the Asian giant was completely unaware of what was about to happen.
But what does not catch China by surprise is American irritation over its growing weight in the region, in which between 2010 and 2019 Chinese direct investments multiplied by seven those of the previous decade and in 2024 alone reached $14.71 billion, according to data from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
These are strategic investments that have alleviated the endemic deficit in Latin America in terms of transportation, communications and technology infrastructure: the port of Chancay in Peru, electric car factories in Mexico and Brazil or the fourth bridge over the Panama Canal are some examples.
A historic setback
“For Latin American countries, the situation is ruinous, a tragedy. The US will never be able to match the expectations that arise from the relationship with China in economic or commercial matters. Nor does it intend to. We will witness a peculiar ‘acupuncture’ in which the US will impose what can and cannot be done with China,” says the former director of the Chinese Policy Observatory, Xulio Ríos.
In his opinion, “it is not only a humiliating affront to national dignity and sovereignty but also a historic setback for the region, whose right to development will be sacrificed on the altar of submission to the empire.”
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However, several diplomatic sources consulted by EFE consider that there is no ‘Donroe doctrine’ (as the US president, Donald Trump, has baptized his new crusade for dominance of the region) that can reverse in a few months two decades of Chinese advance or undo at a stroke the strong commercial ties woven in that period, including Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, and others under negotiation.
Beijing is today the second trading partner of Latin America, with a trade exchange of 518.47 billion dollars in 2024, 6% more than the previous year, with special weight of soybeans and mining products imported by China and electric vehicles, industrial machinery and technology sold by the Asian giant.
Economic pragmatism over ideologies
Most Latin American countries have reinforced their embassies in China in recent years, illustrating how ties are governed by pragmatism and not by political harmony, the same sources agree. For example, the diluted electoral promises of the Argentine Javier Milei, who assured that he would cut off with Beijing and has not done so.
Furthermore, the Chinese market is one of the main alternatives for Latin America in the face of the US tariff war, and the same occurs in the opposite case.
Politically, and despite the increasingly evident turn to the right in the region, China still has powerful allies such as Brazil or Colombia, countries that have unequivocally condemned the actions of the United States, although for Ríos, “the ultraliberal wave represents a growing alignment of the governments of the region with the interests of the United States.”
“Left-wing governments could respond by getting closer to China, but this does not solve their main problem, security,” which is an area in which China’s weight is practically non-existent in the region.
More context: Trump demands that Venezuela end relations with China and Russia
Xi’s nightmare
In the short term, some analysts do not expect Beijing to opt for an open confrontation with Washington, but rather to use what happened to try to reaffirm itself as the undisputed leader of the global south in the face of Washington’s intimidating tactics.
“Beijing will maintain a high diplomatic profile but will tend to avoid confronting the US over Latin America because it could bring greater pressures in East Asia,” says Song Luzheng, an International Relations researcher at Fudan University, quoted by local media.
Xulio Ríos believes that “China will try to secure its interests and investments and limit damage,” although he does not rule out actively defending itself “because this dynamic will not stop in Latin America and it knows it.”
“Once Trump disciplines his partners and allies, including Europeans, he will go even more decisively after China, which is his great strategic rival. And Trump’s dream, to make ‘America great again’, will become Xi’s nightmare,” he predicts.
With information from EFE.
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