{"id":496239,"date":"2026-01-06T10:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496239\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:15:11","slug":"what-does-the-us-raid-in-venezuela-mean-for-chinas-designs-on-taiwan-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496239\/","title":{"rendered":"What does the US raid in Venezuela mean for China\u2019s designs on Taiwan? | Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sight of a hostile regional superpower launching an overnight raid to depose the leader of a smaller neighbouring country could easily have sent pulses in Taiwan<\/a> racing.<\/p>\n

The US on Saturday revealed the details of a surprise raid to capture Venezuela\u2019s leader, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, who was whisked away to the US, where he was frogmarched into a court in New York on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Commentators in China<\/a> immediately drew comparisons to how an assault on Taiwan could play out.<\/p>\n

China, a country with more than 1.4 billion people and the world\u2019s biggest armed forces, has long had designs on Taiwan<\/a>, a self-governing island of 23 million in its back yard. The imbalance in power is comparable to that between the US, which possesses the world\u2019s most powerful army, and Venezuela, a small, middle-income country of just 30m which, like Taiwan, relies on friendly countries for its defence.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Emily Thornberry, the chair of the UK\u2019s foreign affairs committee, warned<\/a> that China and Russia may be emboldened by the lack of condemnation for the US\u2019s actions. But events in the Americas are unlikely to change Beijing\u2019s fundamental thinking with regards to Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Firstly, although China cares about international narratives with regards to Taiwan, and puts great pressure on other countries to recognise Beijing\u2019s claims on the island, it does not see the matter as being one of international laws. Beijing views Taiwan as part of its territory and therefore a domestic political matter. \u201cBeijing has not refrained from kinetic or other actions on Taiwan out of deference to international law and norms. It has pursued a strategy of coercion without violence,\u201d said Ryan Hass, a former US diplomat in Beijing and a senior fellow at Brookings.<\/p>\n

\"MaduroMaduro taken off helicopter in New York on way to court \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Shen Dingli, a senior international relations scholar in Shanghai, laid out the official view: \u201cCross-strait relations are not international relations and are not governed by international law. The United States\u2019 approach to Venezuela<\/a> holds no relevance for cross-strait relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Chinese social media site Weibo, one popular nationalist government affairs commentator wrote: \u201cStop linking the US actions in Venezuela to the Taiwan issue \u2026 Their actions constitute a grave violation of international law and an infringement on Venezuela\u2019s sovereignty, whereas our situation is strictly an internal national affair. There is absolutely no \u2018comparability\u2019 in terms of nature, methods or objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secondly, the biggest deterrence for China in launching an attack on Taiwan is the military balance in the Taiwan Strait. Although China has a more powerful military, Taiwan has the promise of support from the US in the event of an attack. Last week, China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted several days of intense military drills around Taiwan<\/a>, designed to showcase its ability to blockade the island and fend off international assistance.<\/p>\n

The US Department of Defense believes that the PLA is on track to reach its 2027 goal of being able to achieve a \u201cstrategic decisive victory\u201d over Taiwan, particularly with its rapid advances in military artificial intelligence, biotechnology and hypersonic missiles.<\/p>\n

But rather than feel worried by the news in Venezuela, many in Taiwan argued that the successful US military operation may actually give Beijing pause for thought.<\/p>\n

Some pointed out that Venezuela\u2019s China-sourced weapons failed to defend against the US attack. Between 2010 and 2020, nearly 90% of China\u2019s arms sales to the Americas went to Venezuela, according to<\/a> ChinaPower, a research project hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was the US military able to move in as if no one were there?\u201d said Lin Ying Yu, an associate professor at Tamkang University in Taipei. \u201cEveryone seemed to think that Chinese-made weapons were very impressive after the clashes between Indian and Pakistani air forces,\u201d Lin said, referring to<\/a> the success of Chinese-made jets used by Pakistan in a brief conflict with India last year. \u201cBut now, there seems to be a different interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sung Wen-Ti, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council\u2019s Global China Hub who is based in Taiwan, said: \u201cThe US military\u2019s capacity for a decapitation strike, especially against Venezuela\u2019s largely Chinese defence systems, ought to provide a deterrent that makes Beijing think about putting their [military] to the test against Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Donald Trump\u2019s flagrant disregard for the international rules-based order, and the speed at which western leaders have toed Washington\u2019s line, reveals the upending of global norms that is under way. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has declined to condemn Trump\u2019s actions<\/a>, despite the fact that experts have described the attack as illegal under international law. Many European leaders have also equivocated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The US president, Donald Trump, watches the military operation in Venezuela unfold from his resort in Mar-a-Lago. Photograph: @realDonaldTrump\/Reuters<\/p>\n

China said on Monday that the US\u2019s \u201cblatant use of force against Venezuela seriously violates international law and basic norms in international relations\u201d. China, along with Russia, backed an emergency UN security council meeting over the legality of the operation.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s government declined to comment on the US\u2019s actions, despite the fact that Taiwan\u2019s president, Lai Ching-te, has repeatedly talked of the need to defend the international rules-based order<\/a> as a means of preventing a Chinese invasion.<\/p>\n

One popular Taiwanese blogger argued that in order to prevent itself from becoming \u201canother Venezuela\u201d, Taiwan should avoid causing trouble for the US, such as by becoming a source of drugs or refugees. In a Facebook post that received more than 30,000 likes, the popular YouTuber Chiu Wei-chieh, also known as \u201cFroggy\u201d Chiu, said that unlike in Venezuela, Taiwan\u2019s leader has the popular support of the people. \u201cTaiwan should not become Venezuela. That means clenching our five fingers tighter, uniting, and not becoming easy prey in their eyes,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu and Lillian Yang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sight of a hostile regional superpower launching an overnight raid to depose the leader of a smaller…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":496240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-496239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115847634992361719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}