The Global Domino: How US' Action In Venezuela Could Affect China's Taiwan Ambitions

The US has grossly violated the UN Charter and international law in committing unprovoked aggression against Venezuela, violating its sovereignty and, what is most egregious, kidnapping the country’s president for trial in the US. 

The US was threatening military action against Venezuela for some months, with the deployment of major naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico, destroying several boats plying in international waters in the Caribbean and killing people on the presumption that they were ferrying drugs to the US.  

Despite these warning signals the possibility of the US physically attacking Venezuela and kidnapping president Maduro was not anticipated. It was assumed that the US would want to intimidate the Venezuelan leadership through military pressure and possibly provoke a regime change from within but not risk a direct military operation against an ostensibly well-armed and well defended country. In the event, the US launched a well-planned military operation and succeeded in kidnapping Maduro from a military base. 

The ideological basis for the Venezuelan operation was spelt out in the US National Security Strategy 2025 document which politically revived the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, with a Trump Corollary. The US position is that the western hemisphere constitutes the strategic backyard of the US from which foreign powers will be excluded, especially the influence of China and Russia. This is a throwback to imperialist thinking of the past and the division of the world into spheres of influence. This, in effect, amounts to a repudiation of the UN Charter and the international order established after the 2nd World War. 

Trump has announced that the US will now run Venezuela on the assumption that Delcy Rodriguez, the former Vice-President who has replaced Maduro, will do his bidding under threat of more military reprisals if she did not cooperate. He has been upfront in laying claim to Venezuelan oil, declaring it belongs to the US as American companies had developed the oil fields, subsequently nationalised by Venezuela. Trump has admitted that before and after invading Venezuela he had been in contact with US oil companies, which he claims would be ready to restore the country’s dilapidated oil infrastructure. 

Venezuela’s oil reserves are the largest in the world. If these are added to the US reserves, the US will become the most dominant player in the global oil market, with massive financial bonanzas for the US oil companies which are acknowledgedly the biggest funders of Trump and the Republican Party. No wonder Trump in his inaugural speech had intoned the "Drill baby Drill” slogan. 

Trump has made very belligerent comments against the Colombian president whom he accuses of drug trafficking to the US. He is now threatening Colombia too with military action. The revival of the Monroe Doctrine is a challenge for the whole of Latin America where the US has intervened repeatedly in the past to control or effect changes of regimes there. Today, the geopolitical and economic landscape in the Americas has changed. China has become a major economic partner of virtually all Latin American countries, with considerable investments in the continent’s mineral resources.  

For the US Secretary of State Rubio to argue against China, Russia and Iran intruding into an hemisphere in which the US lives, and to question why China and Iran have to buy Venezuelan oil, will invite the argument why the US should intrude into Asia, or be present in the countries bordering Russia, and why countries in the western hemisphere cannot sell commodities to whosoever they want. These countries have development aspirations of their own; they need investments; they are rich in resources which they want to develop and sell to the world. These countries are WTO members along with the US, China and Russia. Some are members of APEC along with the US, China and Russia too. Will the US now oppose APEC and seek to deny these countries' WTO benefits?  

 Spain has joined Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay in issuing a joint statement rejecting the US military operation as a violation of the "basic principles of international law, in particular the prohibition of the use of force and respect for territorial sovereignty established in the United Nations Charter.” They have said that "These actions constitute a dangerous precedent for peace, regional security and pose a risk to the civil population”. Argentina, however, has welcomed the US action. 

Russia and China, as is to be expected, have lambasted the US action, including in the debate in the UN Security Council. The African Union, Singapore, Malaysia, Ghana have issued strong statements. Qatar too has been critical. India’s reaction has been low key, avoiding any direct criticism of the US action in order to remain consistent with the position it had taken on Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. It has limited itself to expressing “deep concern” at the developments and chosen not to refer even to a breach of the UN Charter and international law, as it could and should have, not the least, to mark its credentials as a voice of the global south. 

Europe is in a major quandary as a NATO partner, given that the US action undermines completely the European narrative on Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. On top of it, Trump is re-iterating his territorial claim on Greenland. Germany and the UK have parried questions on their position on Trump’s action, while the French president has endorsed it. The EU has been equivocal.  

The question arises quite legitimately that if the US can without provocation and in breach of the UN Charter and international law attack Venezuela and even kidnap its head of state, does this open the doors to China to achieve its objectives in Taiwan with the use of force?  

China’s claim to Taiwan differs materially from US claims on Venezuela. The US does not consider Venezuela as part of the US. It has no territorial ambitions. It wants to seize Venezuelan oil and the country’s other resources. Geopolitically, Venezuela is not a critical gateway for the US to extend its power to the larger region. The geopolitical stakes in Taiwan for all parties are very different.  

China is already intimidating Taiwan with aggressive military drills. It has made it clear repeatedly that it will reclaim Taiwan either peacefully or by force if necessary. In using force China will have to contend with massive US military presence in the region, US defence commitments to Taiwan, the Island’s own capacities to resist, the reaction of Japan etc. China will have to calculate very carefully the balance of force in the region, the global reaction, and the impact of western sanctions etc. In the case of Venezuela, the US faced no such issues. China cannot emulate the US by claiming that East Asia belongs to them. It doesn’t have the option of abducting the president of Taiwan in order to impose its will on the Island. 

 China will bide its time. Its lawless action in Venezuela seriously impairs America’s discourse on a rules-based order globally and specifically in the South and East China Seas, but the issue for China is not winning the moral argument but to assess if it can get away with the unlawful use of force against Taiwan. 

(Views expressed are personal)

The writer is former foreign secretary of India.