Amid the sharp escalation in tensions between the United States and Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro talked about China, the United States’ greatest financial rival, throughout a speech about schooling within the nation.
While talking about tutorials to learn to do new issues in the course of the closing of the “First Pedagogical Congress of Bolivarian Teachers,” Maduro paused to current his new cellular phone, which, he stated, was a present from China’s chief Xi Jinping.
Maduro stated he communicated with Xi by way of that new telephone by satellite tv for pc.
“You want to learn something, you look for a tutorial. I want to learn how to use that camera that the cameraman has there, you put ‘camera tutorial such-and-such.’ I want to learn how to handle this new Huawei phone (China’s flagship brand in mobile devices), which is the most advanced in the world… This was given to me by President Xi Jinping, of China, I have it here. I communicate by satellite with him,” Maduro commented on the closing occasion.
“Ni hao, ni hao (hello). Xiexie, xiexie (thank you),” the Venezuelan president instantly added whereas pretending to have a telephone name in Mandarin.
While it might sound minor, it was one more signal of Venezuela’s have to publicize its rapprochement with China within the midst of pressure with the US.
In addition to Xi Jinping’s “gift,” there have been different nods to China up to now week, together with, a diplomatic go to and a message from the Asian nation, each of which passed off on Thursday.
Maduro met with Lan Hu, China’s ambassador to Venezuela, and celebrated the progress between the 2 nations, particularly within the financial system, he stated.
“I am happy with the progress of this year 2025 in our mutual cooperation with sister China, especially in economy, science, technology and artificial intelligence projects,” Maduro wrote on social media.
Since his appointment as ambassador to Venezuela in May 2023, Hu has celebrated relations with the Latin American nation and financial progress, as nicely as becoming a member of in on criticizing strain from Washington.
Last 12 months, on the sidelines of the fiftieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Venezuela, Hu criticized “unilateral coercive measures” of the US.
“China and Venezuela are united in defending the rights and interests of developing countries in the face of US unilateral coercive measures, so as to build a more just and equitable multipolar world, based on mutual respect,” Hu said.
These phrases from the Chinese ambassador got here across the identical time the US expressed concern concerning the arrests of opposition activists forward of Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections.
Maduro was later proclaimed the winner by electoral authorities, who’re below the tight management of Maduro’s ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
The opposition questioned the electoral course of, claiming that its candidate had gained the vote, receiving the support of much of the international community. Maduro’s authorities assures that the elections had been reliable, though the detailed outcomes have by no means been revealed.
Beijing shared its considerations following the current US military deployment in Caribbean waters close to Venezuela.
“China opposes any move that violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and a country’s sovereignty and security. We oppose the use or threat of force in international relations and the interference of external forces in Venezuela’s internal affairs under any pretext. We hope that the United States will do more things conducive to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region,” Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday after being requested concerning the problem at a press convention.
This week, the Trump administration carried out a serious army deployment within the waters surrounding Latin America and the Caribbean as a part of an intensified effort to fight drug cartels, two US protection officers told NCS.
The deployment — which comes as the US hardens the drug trafficking narrative about Maduro and his government — additionally features a nuclear-powered assault submarine, further P8 Poseidon reconnaissance jets, a number of destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser as a part of the mission, the officers added.
For his half, Maduro announced the deployment of 4.5 million militiamen all through the nationwide territory, and stated that “no empire is going to touch the sacred ground of Venezuela,” and minimized the “threats to peace” of the nation.
The president assured that his nation has the defensive capability to keep away from a confrontation.
“Let the world know, let the empires know: Venezuela today more than ever has what it takes. That is why we are living in peace and we are going to continue at peace,” Maduro stated throughout a televised ceremony. “We carry the strength of David versus Goliath,” he added earlier than recounting extra particulars of the biblical story.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the US is ready to “use all the resources of its power” with the aim of curbing the “flow of drugs into the country and bringing those responsible to justice,” after being consulted concerning the deployment of three ships with 4,000 army personnel in Caribbean waters.
A US Department of Defense official informed NCS that the deployed ships had not acquired orders to go to the sting of Venezuela’s territorial sea, which has about 4,000 kilometers of shoreline.
The relationship with Beijing has been commercially helpful for Caracas for a while, whereas it’s mired in a deep political and economic crisis.
“The support that Venezuela has had (from China), especially at the economic level, has helped prevent the deepening of this deep economic crisis,” José Antonio Hernández Macías, a researcher in Latin American Studies from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), informed NCS.
China has a commerce surplus with Venezuela: it exports round US$3.45 billion in merchandise to the South American nation, whereas it barely imports $739 million, which implies a surplus of $2.71 billion for the Asian financial system, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) up to date till 2023.
In this sense, China has economically benefited from its relationship with Venezuela, whose primary export product to the world is oil, the OEC provides.
Meanwhile, the United States has a commerce deficit with Venezuela, as it exports fewer merchandise to Venezuela than it buys from it. The commerce steadiness is in favor of Venezuela by greater than US$ 1.3 billion, in accordance with OEC knowledge.
So, as a result of Venezuela is a strategic ally for China within the financial sphere, it seeks to handle its pursuits within the area by exhibiting its stance in opposition to the deployment of the United States, stated the UNAM knowledgeable.
“The oil that exists in the Essequibo, this territory that Venezuela and Guyana are disputing, plays a crucial role in this issue (…) Oil is not only being exploited by the United States, but there are also Chinese companies in this region,” defined Hernández Macías.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a statement on Friday by the Guyanese authorities, which expressed its “grave concern” about “the threat to peace and security in the region posed by transnational organized crime and narco-terrorism, which often involve criminal networks” like Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns.
Recently, the Trump administration reiterated its declare that Maduro is the chief of the felony group of the Cartel of the Suns and doubled the reward to $50 million for data resulting in the arrest of the Venezuelan president. In addition, the US designated the Cartel of the Suns as a world terrorist group. The accusations in opposition to Maduro for alleged drug trafficking, repeatedly rejected by the Government of Venezuela, are not new. They date again to 2020, when the US pointed to Maduro as the chief of the Cartel of the Suns and initially provided $15 million for data resulting in his arrest.
Amid this renewed confrontation between the United States and Venezuela, “what interests (China), beyond defending the Venezuelan government, is that the conditions exist to have access to the energy resources of this entire area,” added Hernández Macías.
On Friday, Reuters reported {that a} personal Chinese firm has begun exploiting two oil fields in Venezuela and plans to speculate greater than $1 billion in a mission to supply 60,000 barrels per day of crude by the top of 2026, below a 20-year production-sharing contract signed in 2024.
While there’s a mutual financial profit, Maduro stays remoted from the world at massive and China’s place on the US army deployment speaks volumes globally, in accordance with Gabriel Pastor, an analyst on the Uruguay-based suppose tank Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Económica y Social (CERES).
“(China’s position) is saying something that more or less everyone can expect, but it does not mean that China is going to intervene in the conflict by supporting Venezuela,” Pastor informed NCS. It is a “politically correct statement” that doesn’t change something for Venezuela, since “no specific action” is introduced to help the Latin American nation.
NCS’s Gonzalo Zegarra, Natasha Bertrand and Germán Padinger contributed to this report.