More details have started to emerge about the American raid that spirited Nicholás Maduro out of Venezuela two weeks ago. There have been reports that US forces used new weapons, including sonic devices or ones with directed energy capabilities, to overcome Maduro’s security.
It now also seems that the Venezuelan military had not connected their Russian-made S-300 and Buk-M2 surface-to-air missile batteries to radar networks, which effectively meant that they were non-operational when America struck.
The build-up of pressure on Maduro’s regime was not exactly easy to miss. A month ago, President Trump himself had said that “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”, including the deployment of the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford.
The Gerald R Ford was moved into position off the Venezuelan coast in advance of the raid
ALYSSA JOY/US NAVY VIA GETTY IMAGES
A few weeks earlier the US had reopened Roosevelt Roads, a naval base in Puerto Rico that had been closed for more than 20 years, and installed a high-tech radar unit at ANR Robinson airport in Tobago.
That an intervention was imminent was understood by Russia, one of Venezuela’s most enthusiastic partners over the last two decades. Towards the end of last month Moscow began pulling diplomats and their families out of the capital, Caracas.
Russia’s assessment of the situation, and its withdrawal of personnel, were not shared with Beijing, according to well-placed sources in China. This has caused eyebrows to be raised about what it means for a relationship between the two countries that is supposed to be “comprehensive”, “mutually beneficial” and “eternal”.
Beijing was not simply blindsided by the US operation, it was embarrassed by it. Qiu Xiaoqi, China’s special envoy to Latin America, had arrived in Caracas and met Maduro hours before the latter was captured. Shortly before, Wang Yi and Yván Gil, the two countries’ foreign ministers, had spoken by phone to affirm China’s “solidarity and firm support for Venezuela in defending its sovereignty, independence and stability.”
These words would serve less as a show of resolve than a measure of how limited China’s ability was to translate diplomatic language into meaningful protection or leverage on the ground.
China stands to lose out from the many billions of dollars of loans it has made to Venezuela in return for its oil. It also stands to lose the half a million barrels of oil a day it has been getting from its ally: about 4 per cent of its total oil imports. Such was Beijing’s confidence in its partnership with Maduro and his regime that it invested an estimated $9 billion in building a petrochemical plant in Jieyang, Guangdong province, capable of producing 20 million tons of refined oil a year.
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It is easy to make crass comments about the significance of losing face in Chinese culture. In this case, though, the fact that Beijing has been caught badly out of position, outmanoeuvred by the US and let down by Russia, has sparked vigorous discussion in China — and, in some quarters, speculation that the failure of Russian-built defence systems in Venezuela was not a coincidence, but evidence of high-level co-operation between Moscow and Washington.
In testimony before Congress in 2019, Fiona Hill, Trump’s senior adviser on Russia during his first term in office, recounted a conversation that, at the time, seemed like a geopolitical oddity. Hill said that Russian officials repeatedly floated a “very strange swap arrangement” whereby Moscow might ease back its support for Maduro if the US gave Russia a freer hand in Ukraine.
This was not a formal offer, Hill stressed, but a “hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, how-about-doing-a-deal”. This was out of the question, according to Hill, who was sent to Moscow in April that year to underline that “Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other”.
Fiona Hill testified about a “very strange swap arrangement” with Russia in 2019
ANDREW HARNIK/AP
Over the last few years, the question of whether Russia is both a reliable and a good ally has become one of the key talking points among policymakers, advisers and thinkers in China.
Professor Jia Qingguo, former dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and one of the most well-connected figures in Chinese strategic thinking, noted that while Russia’s isolation because of the war in Ukraine had brought economic benefits to China, these have come at a cost.
In particular, he noted in an interview just before the Maduro operation that Moscow’s dependence on China has meant that the latter’s current and future relations with Europe have been compromised. As such, he added, a solution to the war in Ukraine would be of benefit to China.
That is a view that has started to gain currency in recent months in Beijing, where more questions are being asked about the wisdom of an alignment with Russia supposed to be based on shared interests, but which in practice has become increasingly asymmetrical and uncomfortable. Russia’s willingness to ignore the UN charter, to rely on military force as a first resort and to use the threat of nuclear escalation and coercion as diplomatic tools sit uneasily with China’s preferred self-image as a stabilising power that works through institutions, rules and long-term balance.
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For Chinese strategists, the problem is not simply reputational damage in Europe or the US, but the deeper risk of being tied to a partner whose way of doing things cuts directly against China’s own instincts about order, predictability and control.
On Friday, China struck a deal with Canada to reduce tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and on Canadian agricultural products. The significance of this agreement lies less in what it says about Western countries hedging against the US under an aggressive and seemingly erratic Trump, and more in what it signals back to Beijing itself.
The deal, while modest in scale, is a reminder that China still sees value in engagement with advanced economies that operate within established legal and institutional frameworks — and that there are alternative pathways open to it beyond dependence on a sanctioned, militarised Russia.
For policymakers in Beijing, the contrast is stark: one partner leans on force, disruption and intimidation; the other offers markets, rules and negotiated stability. The question increasingly being debated inside China is not whether Russia is useful in pushing back against American pressure, but whether following Russia’s example leads China towards the kind of global role it actually wants to play.
That was already being discussed before Maduro was spirited to a courtroom in New York; but the significance of the US operation is not limited to what it means to Venezuela, or even to oil, but to a profound reshaping of the global order.
Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at Oxford University