China condemns Maduro capture, but some see it as a chance to assert its global position

BEIJING — An attack on a country after a military buildup and an embargo at sea. A leader deposed by a superpower that considers him illegitimate.

While some draw parallels between the dramatic U.S. action in Venezuela and China’s ambitions over Taiwan, experts say Beijing is less concerned about the self-ruled island’s sovereignty and instead sees the attack as an opportunity to undermine America’s global leadership.

As the Trump administration withdraws from global institutions and upends long-held norms, Beijing seeks to present itself as the true champion of a rules-based international order. Chinese state media comments on the attack in Venezuela assert that the United States now poses one of the greatest threats to that order and that its actions have undermined its credibility in Latin America.

“It’s a country that behaved like a hegemon, right? said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai Fudan University. “How can we trust a country that would treat its weak neighbors like this?

China has strongly condemned the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, saying it violated international law and threatened peace and security in Latin America. He said the United States should immediately release Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who are scheduled to appear in a New York court on Monday on drug trafficking and other charges.

On Monday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping appeared to reference the attack on one of his country’s key South American allies, saying the world was going through turmoil and “unilateral bullying has serious consequences for the international order.”

“All countries should respect the development path independently chosen by other peoples, respect international law and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, and major countries should take the lead,” he said during a meeting in Beijing with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, without mentioning the United States by name.

His comments came a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said no country “can play the role of the world’s policeman, nor do we agree that any country can claim to be an international judge.”

China has long served as an economic lifeline for heavily sanctioned Venezuela, accounting for the majority of its crude oil exports. He has expressed support for Venezuela in recent months amid President Donald Trump’s military buildup, although he has no security commitments to the country and experts say he has avoided more concrete actions, in part to preserve the U.S.-China trade truce.

Maduro was arrested hours after meeting in Caracas with Qiu Xiaoqi, Beijing’s special envoy for Latin American affairs, during his last official meeting made public.

It is unclear whether Qiu and the rest of his delegation are still in Venezuela. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday that there were “no reports that Chinese personnel in Venezuela were affected by the U.S. airstrikes.”

In a caption accompanying the photos and videos posted on his Instagram account, Maduro described the meeting as “a fraternal encounter that reaffirms the strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship between China and Venezuela.”

China, already South America’s largest trading partner, is seeking to expand its influence in the region, even as Trump has made it the center of his national security agenda. Although Beijing has emphasized economic ties and non-intervention in its approach to Latin America, the policy document released last month placed more emphasis on military and police cooperation.

“All countries in the region have more or less healthy relations with China,” said Bárbara Fernández Melleda, assistant professor of Latin American studies at the University of Hong Kong. “And if the United States becomes hostile to China through Latin American countries, that’s a new scenario.”

The U.S. attack on Venezuela, where Chinese companies have invested billions, has sparked concern in China, Wu said.

Latin American countries may feel pressured “to be more cautious in their economic relations with China in the future,” he told NBC News in an interview. “And also for the Chinese business community, they see not only uncertainty but also increasing risk in this region.”

“Two different problems”

The U.S. attack on Venezuela has also raised fears that it could embolden China to act against Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory and has vowed to bring under its control, by force if necessary.

And for some users on heavily censored Chinese social media, Trump’s assertion that the United States was “in control” after Maduro’s capture was an inspiration.

“The arrest of the Venezuelan president is a good example for us. Taiwanese William Lai must be trembling in fear now!” » Read a comment on Chinese social media platform Weibo, referring to Lai Ching-te, the president of Taiwan.

But Venezuela and Taiwan are “two different problems,” according to Wu of Fudan University. “Venezuela is an independent sovereign state and Taiwan is part of China,” he said, adding that China prefers “a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue.”

Events in Venezuela will not “radically change Beijing’s calculus on Taiwan,” said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, adding that China would focus on protecting its interests in Latin America.

“Privately,” he said on

The Taiwanese government has yet to publicly comment on Maduro’s capture.

The island is under increasing pressure from Beijing, which surrounded it last week in a large-scale military exercise simulating a blockade. The live-fire exercises followed the announcement of an $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan by the United States, the island’s largest arms supplier.

The U.S. strike in Venezuela could slow China’s timetable for an attack on Taiwan, “but could give ammunition to U.S. skeptics” on the island who fear Washington won’t come to its defense, said Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, based in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital.

The U.S. military’s ability to carry out a Maduro-style “decapitation strike,” particularly against Venezuela’s largely Chinese defense systems, could make Beijing think twice before testing its military against Washington’s, Sung said via a messaging app.

But the strike also reinforces the idea that the United States is “concerned about the Western Hemisphere and skeptics will wonder what sphere of influence Taiwan falls into in this Monroe Doctrine 2.0,” he said, referring to Trump’s spin on 19th-century U.S. foreign policy.

Others say China has refrained from attacking Taiwan not because it lacks global authorization, but because it simply isn’t ready.

“China has never lacked hostile intentions toward Taiwan; what it really lacks is the ability to implement them,” Wang Ting-yu, a senior lawmaker from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

“China is not the United States, and Taiwan is certainly not Venezuela. If China really could do it, it would have done it a long time ago!”

Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Beijing and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.