By Michael Martina, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Among the many aims of last week’s US military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was to send a message to China: stay away from America.
For at least two decades, Beijing has sought to build influence in Latin America, not only to pursue economic opportunities but to gain a strategic position on the doorstep of its greatest geopolitical rival.
China’s progress – from satellite tracking stations in Argentina and a port in Peru to economic support for Venezuela – has been irritating to successive US administrations, including that of Donald Trump.
Several Trump administration officials told Reuters that the US President’s move against Maduro was intended in part to counter China’s ambitions, and Beijing’s days of leveraging debt to get cheap oil from Venezuela were “over.”
‘WE DON’T WANT YOU THERE’
Trump made the message explicit on Friday, expressing discomfort with China and Russia as a “next-door neighbor,” in a meeting with oil executives.
“I said to China and I said to Russia, ‘We get along with you very well, we love you very much, we don’t want you there, you’re not going to be there,'” Trump said. Now, he said, he will tell China that “we are open for business” and that they can “buy all the oil they want from us there or in the United States.”
The success of the early morning raid on 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 defenses that US forces quickly disabled had been supplied by China and Russia, and Trump said that 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil under sanctions, much of it previously bound for Chinese ports, would now be sent to the United States.
Analysts said Maduro’s capture exposed Beijing’s limited ability to exert its will in America.
The attack exposed the gap between China’s “great power rhetoric and its real reach” in the Western Hemisphere, said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
“Beijing can protest diplomatically, but it cannot protect partners or assets once Washington decides to apply direct pressure,” he said.
In a statement to Reuters, the Chinese embassy in Washington said it rejected what it called “unilateral, illegal and bullying acts” by the United States.
“China and the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean maintain exchanges of friendship and cooperation. No matter how the situation may evolve, we will continue to be a friend and partner,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the embassy.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
But one administration official said that “China should be concerned about their position in the Western Hemisphere,” adding that their partners in the region increasingly realize that China cannot protect them.
TRUMP’S UNCLEAR CHINA POLICY
The Trump administration’s policy towards Beijing seems contradictory, with concessions aimed at calming a trade war on the one hand and more assertive US support for Taiwan on the other.
The Venezuelan operation appeared to nudge US policy in a harsher direction.
Indeed, the timing of the US attack amplified Beijing’s embarrassment.
Just hours before he was ousted, Maduro met with China’s special envoy for Latin America, Qiu Xiaoqi, in Caracas, his last public appearance before being imprisoned in the United States.
The meeting, which took place on camera even as US military forces were secretly preparing to launch their operation, suggested Beijing was blindsided, another US official said.
“If they knew, they wouldn’t have gone so publicly,” the US official told Reuters.
For years, Beijing has poured money into Venezuela’s oil refineries and infrastructure, providing an economic lifeline after the United States and its allies tightened sanctions since 2017.
Along with Russia, China has also provided funding and equipment for Venezuela’s military, including radar arrays recently billed as capable of detecting advanced US military aircraft. Those systems did little to disrupt a raid that American officials boasted was carried out without any casualties.
“Every nation around the world with Chinese defense equipment is checking their air defenses and wondering how safe they actually are from the United States,” said Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank.
“They are also noting how China’s diplomatic assurances to Iran and Venezuela resulted in zero meaningful protection when the US military arrived.”
China is now studying what went wrong with those defenses so they can strengthen their own systems, according to a person briefed on the intelligence about their response.
CHINA FACES OTHER REGIONAL RISKS
China may soon be under pressure elsewhere in the region.
It has sought to increase its influence in Cuba, and the United States suspects Beijing of running an intelligence-gathering operation there. China denies this, but last year promised better intelligence sharing with Cuba.
In the days after the Venezuelan operation, Trump said that the American military intervention in Cuba, which suffered from the loss of Venezuelan oil, was probably unnecessary because it seemed ready to fall on its own.
The Trump administration also continues to push Chinese companies away from port operations around the Panama Canal, the critical waterway that connects 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 curb it, including by withdrawing from Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and verifying Panama’s port concession under contract to Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison.
While China may be on the back foot in the region, analysts warn that the extended US military involvement in Venezuela or the deterioration in the security situation there could open the door for Beijing to find itself again.
Daniel Russel, a former senior State Department official now with the Asia Society, said the dramatic shift in Washington under Trump from a rule of law stance to a “logic of spheres of influence focused on the Western Hemisphere” could play into China’s hands.
“Beijing wants Washington to accept that Asia is in China’s sphere, and no doubt hopes that the United States will turn on 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)