Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez met with China’s ambassador to the country, Lan Hu, on Thursday, in an effort to reassure the chavistas‘ communist patrons that their prime position in Venezuelan politics would be respected following the arrest of longtime dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro and wife, “First Combatant” Cilia Flores, were arrested and extradited to the United States on January 3, extracted from the Miraflores Palace by a U.S. military operation. Both face a long list of narco-terrorism charges tied to their alleged relationships with terrorist organizations such as the Tren de Aragua, the Cartel of the Suns, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). They are facing trial in the Southern District of New York, where their nephews, Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, were convicted on drug-trafficking charges in 2017.
Rodríguez assumed the presidency on Monday with the support of President Donald Trump, who has called for a transition out of the decades-old socialist dictatorship into a situation that would allow for free and fair elections. Trump and his administration have described Rodríguez as cooperative and closely in touch with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a situation that has caused alarm in Beijing. Maduro and predecessor Hugo Chávez enthusiastically embraced diplomatic ties with communist China; Maduro’s last public event before his arrest was a meeting with an envoy sent by genocidal dictator Xi Jinping.
Rodríguez published a photo on her Instagram account on Thursday with Lan Hu, the Chinese ambassador, describing their conversation as “affectionate.”
“I held an affectionate meeting with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Venezuela, Lan Hu, to whom we transmitted our sincere appreciation for his condemnation of the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, as well as the aggressions against Venezuela,” Rodríguez wrote. “We value the first and consequential position of China in energetically condemning the grave violation of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed the meeting and reiterated its condemnation of Maduro’s arrest, as well as its intent to continue meddling in Venezuelan affairs.
“China attaches importance to its relations with Venezuela and maintains sound communication and cooperation with the Venezuelan government,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters on Friday. “China will continue to firmly support Venezuela in upholding its sovereignty, dignity, national security and lawful rights and interests.”
“No matter what political changes may take place in Venezuela, it will not change China’s will of deepening practical cooperation in various fields with Venezuela and promoting common development,” she asserted.
The Chinese communist regime is widely believed to be one of the world’s biggest consumers of sanctioned Venezuela oil, much of which it is not believed to have been paying for. In 2018, Maduro signed a deal with Beijing for a $5 billion loan to keep the regime afloat at a time when socialist mismanagement of the economy had led to a near-total collapse, forcing Venezuelans to eat garbage to survive and leaving them with no meaningful access to health care. The deal included provisions allowing Venezuela to pay the loan back in oil. Following the arrest of Maduro, however, President Trump announced that the Venezuelan government would be handing over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States, a partial payment for the expropriation of billions of dollars in American corporate assets during the Chávez and Maduro eras.
The Trump administration made clear following the arrest of Maduro that it did not intend to allow foreign powers to colonize or control the Western Hemisphere, adding to Chinese concerns after over a decade of “Belt and Road” scams to erode the sovereignty of Latin American nations.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted.
“Venezuela is a sovereign state and has full permanent sovereignty over all its natural resources and economic activities. The U.S. blatantly used force against Venezuela and asked the country to ‘favor’ America with regard to its oil reserves,” Mao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, complained this week.
The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times suggested on Friday that Rodríguez’s meeting with Lan eased some of the panic in Beijing.
“The meeting sends an important signal that Venezuela remains firm on developing its relations with China,” a regime-approved “expert” told the outlet.