China, Venezuela Alliance Faces Turbulence

(MENAFN) China’s enduring economic and political alliance with Venezuela has entered a phase of unpredictability following a US military action that resulted in the detention of President Nicolas Maduro, sparking doubts about Beijing’s future commerce, capital flows, and strategic priorities in the nation.

China remains Venezuela’s biggest purchaser of crude petroleum and its second-largest commercial partner after the US. Based on shipping figures from Kpler, China obtained more than half of Venezuela’s petroleum exports in the previous year.

Two-way commerce between China and Venezuela amounted to nearly $7 billion by late 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund. Analysts note that the partnership has altered considerably over the past ten years, moving away from aggressive lending and expansive investment toward a more cautious, risk-sensitive stance.

Ties between China and Venezuela intensified after the late President Hugo Chavez assumed office in 1999, viewing China as a model of “socialism for the 21st century,” Francisco Urdinez, a Chilean scholar specializing in China–Latin America relations, told Anadolu.

“The anti-US rhetoric” made Venezuela, along with Cuba, “quite dependent on China's finance and investment,” he explained.

This bond was reinforced through nearly 600 cooperative accords spanning infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, transportation, defense, aerospace technology, and food production.

During Chavez’s tenure and the initial years of Maduro’s leadership, China became Venezuela’s most significant external financial supporter.

Although the partnership waned with Venezuela’s economic troubles, the bilateral relationship was upgraded to an “all-weather strategic partnership” – one of the highest levels in Beijing’s diplomatic hierarchy – during Maduro’s official visit to China in 2023.

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