Violence erupts in Venezuela
And China will have to choose
Maduro or Guaidó?
Welcome back to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Venezuela is in chaos.
Again.
Protesters and military clashed on Wednesday,
as armored vehicles drove into crowds of unarmed civilians.
Tens of thousands took to the streets,
following a call from opposition leader Juan Guaidó
to overthrow the ruling Maduro regime.
“The call is for everyone to come out
into the streets at this moment
to give backing to what we have built over years.”
But Nicolás Maduro is not backing down.
And that’s become a big problem
for the Chinese Communist Party.
The Chinese regime has some tough decisions to make
when it comes to Venezuela.
First, to intervene or not to intervene?
The Chinese Communist Party has always criticized the US
for getting involved in other countries’ internal affairs.
At a meeting in Beijing over the weekend,
Xi Jinping expressed that it’s “totally unacceptable
when anyone tries to topple authorities in a third country,
attempting to use force and illegal international pressure
against a sovereign state,
in order to change the leadership there.”
And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
has said the US would potentially intervene in Venezuela.
“Did the United States back this push by Juan Guaidó
or give any assurances to Guaidó
that the US would support him?”
“Oh we've made clear assurances Wolf all along
that we'll support Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly.
They're the duly elected leaders of the Venezuelan government,
so yes we've provided strong assurances to them.”
Uh oh.
That’s not what the Chinese regime wants!
They’ve invested tens of billions of dollars into Venezuela
under the Nicolás Maduro regime.
They supplied Venezuelan police
with a lot of their equipment.
And during this meeting last September,
Xi Jinping promised Maduro to
“provide whatever help it can offer.”
Part of that help included a 5 billion dollar credit line.
China has also sent delegations to Venezuela
as a show of support for Maduro.
Which is why Pompeo has recently said,
“China and others are being hypocritical
in calling for ‘non-intervention’ in Venezuela’s affairs.
Their own financial interventions
have helped destroy the country.”
Basically, he’s saying China has no problem
with countries intervening in
the internal affairs of other countries.
As long as the country doing the intervening is China.
Or Russia.
Or just not the United States.
But that leaves another tough decision
for the Chinese Communist Party.
What’s the best way to intervene in Venezuela?
Will it continue to throw its weight behind Maduro
and hope he can keep his grip on power?
Or should it back Guaidó?
Again, there’s tens of billions of dollars
of investment on the line.
If China backs Maduro,
but he gets ousted,
Guaidó might think twice about all that Chinese investment.
On the other hand, if China backs Guaidó,
and Maduro does manage to stay in power,
that’s pretty embarrassing.
How do you explain that at your next friendship meeting?
Everyone knows you can only have one best friend.
And Guaidó is definitely making his case
to the Chinese regime
that he can be their new bestie.
He penned a letter,
appealing to the better nature of Communist Party officials.
He wrote that
“At least 87 percent of Venezuelans live in poverty,
subject to 90 per cent shortages in food and medical supplies.
Basic services such as electricity and water have collapsed.
The inflation rate exceeded 2.6 million percent in January 2019
and threatens to reach 10 million percent
by the end of this year.”
But just in case Communist Party officials
don’t feel enough empathy for the people of Venezuela,
Guaidó also added another incentive.
“China is the world’s largest oil importer
and Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
For those two reasons alone,
the economic relationship between our nations
will inevitably grow.”
That’s better.
But for now, it seems like the Venezuelan military
is still backing Maduro.
And there’s always a chance Guaidó
could end up being detained or even disappearing.
Of course, if that happens,
the US has said military options are on the table.
Or at least not off the table.
“I don't think anyone should be fooled,
that if the president makes that decision,
if he chooses a military option,
that the United States military has the capacity
to execute that option in a way
that will achieve the outcome the president intends.”
Which is the third problem for China—
how to deal with the US.
On the one hand, the Chinese Communist Party
likes to act like a superpower,
one that resists the US.
Here’s China’s Foreign MInistry Spokesman
and retired Mortal Kombat character Lu Kang
responding to criticism from Mike Pompeo
about China’s role in Venezuela.
“US Secretary of State Pompeo willfully tarnished China
and deliberately drove a wedge into relations
between China and Latin America.”
But on the other hand,
“China would not want to hurt
its all-important ties with the US
because of its economic and investment interests in Latin America.”
China is still negotiating a trade deal
with the Trump administration.
It wouldn’t want to to jeopardize a deal with America,
just to help Maduro.
Even less would the Chinese Communist Party
want to find itself in a position where Chinese troops
were caught in a skirmish with US troops.
What do you think of China’s choices in Venezuela.
Who will they give their friendship necklace to?
Let me know in the comments below.
What’s that, Shelley?
Oh right.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from one of you—
a fan who support China Uncensored
with a dollar or more per episode,
by contributing through Patreon.
Peter Malchiodi asks,
“How does it make good business sense
to deal with people who will end you
as soon as they are done benefiting from you?”
Peter is asking about Western companies
doing business in China.
That’s a good question.
Basically a lot of Western companies
that have gone to China
end up getting their intellectual property stolen,
or they’re forced to give it away,
and a Chinese company then reverse engineers their product
and then out-competes the American company
by making cheap knockoffs.
And this is no accident.
It’s done precisely according to
the Chinese Communist Party’s plans
for economically out-competing the US.
So why do Western companies
keep jumping into the China market?
Because there’s money now!
Consequences are later.
Plus, when a lot of these companies
started getting hacked and robbed,
they...tried to cover it up.
I mean, getting taken advantage of like that
is so embarrassing.
What would shareholders think?
So wave after wave of companies go into China,
not knowing how previous companies
had been taken advantage of,
or thinking that of course they would be too smart
to get taken advantage of...
and they keep falling for it.
Thanks for your question, Peter.
And thank you to all my 50-Cent Army soldiers
who support China Uncensored.
It’s only because of your support
that we’ve been able to cover topics
that most other media don’t want to,
because standing up to the Chinese Communist Party
is really hard.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.