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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the "world's judge" after the United States captured Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.

The world's second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.

Almost half of China's purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.

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[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 7 points 3 months ago

I'm not so sure it does. China is openly arguing against Trumps logic here, and the US just did demonstrate their military is still highly effective. The US seventh fleet hasn't moved away from Taiwan, and Trump is clearly signalling he intends to keep China down.

I'd argue Xi is not happy Trump decided to actually do something like this, because it increased the risk of his plans with Taiwan as well now that the US is openly hostile and MAGA cheers it on.

China needed him to keep up the whole peace pretense and for MAGA to stay on board with that. Now that that's gone, Trump has cleared the way for more military intervention.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

MAGA is actually currently having a bit of a crisis of confidence. One of the promises Trump made was to stop the empire building and international interference. Now he's going around causing an international incident every 45 minutes.

He has gone from saying that it was a single strike, to threatening more strikes against Venezuela, to threatening yet other countries in the last 24 hours.

[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev -1 points 3 months ago

A random Xitter account crying foul isn't a sign of widespread crisis of confidence. Only 6% of Republicans don't approve of the Maduro kidnapping. His approval rating went up a bit since the kidnapping (38% -> 42%).

His base, by and large, support the warmongering.

[-] prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

From China's perspective (and in theory, Taiwan's perspective), invading Taiwan isn't the same, because they both officially recognize One China, they just disagree about who's in charge.

It would more akin to USA invading Puerto Rico, if the governor of PR asserted that they were in fact the proper leaders of the USA.

this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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