On January 7, Margaret Myers, senior advisor to the Inter-American Dialogue’s Asia & Latin America Program, spoke with BBC News about the China-Venezuela relations after Maduro’s removal from power.
COMMENTS FROM MYERS:
“I think there are a number of things that really stand out. One is that, you know, China described itself as shocked, right? And I think that’s an absolutely accurate characterization. China has spent years now on the ground cultivating strong relationships throughout the Maduro government and even beyond, including with members of the opposition, really seeking to have an influential place in Venezuela to understand in-depth what’s happening there, both in an effort to protect its own commercial interests and in an effort to ensure that Venezuela proceeds from a policy perspective in a way that would be conducive to Chinese interests. That effort has clearly not paid off, at least not paid off in the way perhaps that China had intended. Being entirely caught off guard has meant that China really did not read the situation particularly well—it did not expect the U.S. to take these measures, at least not on this timeline—and that all of these long, long-established relationships really didn’t pay off from an intelligence perspective.”
“And so I think at this juncture, what we’ll be seeing is a real evaluation not only of how to engage Venezuela. China remains very much present and looking to continue to engage with the vice president now and indeed with others, to try to understand how best it can navigate this situation, but also to re-evaluate its commitment to people-to-people connectivity, which is something that it’s really stepped up over the years across the entirety of the region in pursuit of commercial and economic objectives.”
“One important point is that China does not rely exclusively on Venezuela for supply of oil. Venezuela is part of an overall supply network, but certainly the Middle East factors far more prominently in China’s overall energy calculus, as do other regions, for that matter. However, it’s still an important partner and has been supplying, historically, levels of oil less than they had promised over time, but nevertheless, a good quantity to China.”
“If these barrels are sent to the United States and sold on the international market, that means that China would buy them. And instead, the arrangement was that Venezuela would be shipping these barrels to China as repayment for loans that were issued by China in the amount of about $50 billion since 2007, for a wide variety of projects that Venezuela pursued or did not pursue in certain cases. So this would be essentially a loss for China. And China may very much be left holding the check as concerns outstanding Venezuelan debt.”
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE:
