¿Qué quieres decir cuando dices China, por favor?

by liberal japonicus

Following up on my comment about whatever it is that the US did in Venezuela and what it means to China, some discussion, a couple of links and other stuff as background.

This Guardian article and this BBC piece lay out the basics. I don’t have any inside information or special insights, but it is interesting how what people think about the relationship tells you a lot about other stuff, but not a lot about China.

As y’all probably know, Venezuela under Chavez really pulled closer to China. From this link:

China and Venezuela elevated bilateral relations to an “all-weather strategic partnership” in 2023 when Maduro met President Xi Jinping in Beijing. China shares this highest-tier of bilateral relationship with only a handful of close partners, including Belarus and Pakistan.

However, closer ties, which would be underpinned by more oil exports, were not easy, because of Venezuela’s location and the kind of oil Venezuela is able to extract. This link with the fun title of Beijing’s Pragmatism Meets Hugo Chavez points out that 1) the oil Venezuela extracts is not the right kind for Chinese refineries and 2)the geographic location meant that they had to go around the Cape of Good Hope because the large tankers Venezuela uses are too big to go thru the Panama Canal. Where there was a will, there was a way, but with Donnie as Venezuelan president pro tempore, that’s not happening

This piece is about the so-called ‘”teapot refineries” in Shadong, China, that were handling the Venezuelan oil. Because of sanctions, these refineries were getting the Venezuelan oil with a steep discount, and they handle a quarter of China’s petrochemical refining. So a piece like this that seems to suggest oil is completely fungible is missing the mark. Another interesting aspect to this is that Iran has similar ‘heavy’ oil and these refineries are switching to that, so unrest in Iran could have an impact, though it is difficult to say what that impact might be. If the regime needs money, they can try and increase sales to China, if a new or rebooted government comes in, they might want to do that, or they might want to try and roll the dice with US. Say want you want about Orange half-wit, he has created a world with a plethora of ways the shit can hit the fan.

After Chavez, China pulled back a bit from Venezuela, holding off on disbursing loans, so the total outstanding debt is about 10-12 billion dollars, which is, in context, pocket change for China. It’s the quarterly profit for a Chinese company like Tencent or Alibaba, so articles like this that lead with the idea that China is in deep trouble are probably starting from a point of view that isn’t very balanced. The one danger, that Venezuela not paying China back would have other countries in the Belt and Road Initiative defaulting as well, is probably the only possible problem, but if you’re a country looking at this as a grudge match between China and the US, you probably are going to tippy toe around both of them. Just to assuage our Sweet Summer Child, I’m not suggesting that the BRI is benign, just thinking that it is the same as having the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. (John Connally, when is the SecTres, told a G10 meeting back in the 70’s that the dollar was “our currency, but your problem”) Think Finland in WWII.

The Economist has this article, entitled America’s raid on Venezuela reveals the limits of China’s reach, with the subtitle It is not a template for Taiwan but a reality check on China’s global power, is paywalled, and it’s not in the school library yet. However, I assume that this podcast echoes the same points, which are that what the US has done should be thought of as, intentionally or not, checking Chinese plans in Taiwan. The big hook is that Maduro hosted a Chinese delegation a few days before the US snatch and grab, but I think they try and lean into that and then argue that other countries in South America are also going to pull away from China. Unfortunately, no transcript, but if I’m understanding it correctly, that doesn’t seem to be the case, with Brazil, Mexico and Columbia leaning into commercial (and therefore China). Of course, Argentina and El Salvador are on the Trump side of the ledger, but a lot of the podcast sounds like people played too much Risk as kids.

That timing of the snatch happening just after meeting with the Chinese has been taken by some as a warning to China, and it is difficult to imagine that the US didn’t know Maduro’s schedule, however, I would have expected Trump to crow about it in some way, so maybe it was dumb luck? A second theory is that the operation was green-lit because of operational security and doing it right after a meeting with the perfidious CCCP officials was the best chance to get Maduro. Who knows? It’s striking to me that there isn’t any kind of discussion (not even a whatsapp leak, so I guess Pete Hegseth was out of the loop). There is also a lot of speculation that Russia and China were given some advanced notice, which is possible, given that the Russians have bases in Venezuela. Several articles also rabbit on about how this is an indication that Chinese technology (which was supposed to be protecting Maduro) is still not up to snuff with the US. Cheryl Rofer at LGM makes the excellent point that the US military is a finite resource. There is also a consensus that Maduro is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which makes any failures in tech or training a little less salient. Still, after the Iran bombing, we had various accounts of the behind the scenes, yet none that I know of here, so I wonder what the difference is.

Quoted in the Guardian piece above and at greater length here, Emily Thornberry argues that

The lack of western condemnation of the US military intervention in Venezuela could embolden China and Russia to take similar action against other countries, a senior Labour MP has warned.

Again, this seems like it is not discussing China, it is using China to try and have Starmer behave the way Thornberry wants. Several others have pointed out that China views Taiwan as a domestic problem, so Trump’s waving his ass like a baboon at international law doesn’t really matter.

While I don’t think China is the bee’s knees, I do think they are clever, and they will exploit this not by taking Taiwan, but by puffing up their international credentials, which you can see with this response. This is in line with the Chinese victory in WWII celebrations (or more accurately Conference to Commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War)

A brief digression. At my university, my part in an omnibus course was entitled Budo and Japan, and budo is the Japanese term for martial arts. I’d start off with the kamikaze (a word which Japanese don’t use, instead using Tokkōtai, which is short for Tokubetsu Kōgekitai or “Special Attack Unit”) which would then get us into the long martial tradition of Japan. However, about 10 or so years ago, we got an influx of Chinese exchange students from a few rural universities. Their English was a bit weak, so I did it in Japanese and English, and wondered why they didn’t understand my Japanese. I came to find out that they had no idea that the US participated in WWII. Victory came when the Chinese forces overcame the Japanese. Are they wrong? While the standard academic estimates have the Soviet Union as losing 24 million and China second with 20 million, recent arguments argue that the Chinese numbers, because of a lack of a pre-war census, could be even greater than the USSR. Something to perhaps keep in mind when wondering why the Chinese seem so touchy.

Anyway, that’s a dog’s breakfast of stuff that folks are welcome to discuss. I’m not sure if we can ever get a discussion of China that doesn’t automatically draw on preconceived notions that may have very little to do with things.