When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, he forged strategic alliances with China and Russia to advance his vision of a multipolar world and counter the influence of the United States.
These relations were crucial in 2019, when Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro faced a serious crisis of legitimacy after elections marred by allegations of fraud: both powers subsequently rejected international recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who had declared himself interim president.
Beijing and Moscow even supported Maduro economically and militarily.
Six years later, Maduro is facing a new crisis – the worst in his more than 12 years in power – but neither China nor Russia have shown any willingness to support him beyond general calls for calm and non-interference.
Everything indicates that this time Maduro is alone against what he denounces as an attempted overthrow.
Since September, Donald Trump’s administration has deployed about 15,000 troops and more than 20% of the U.S. Navy’s combat capacity in Caribbean waters off the coast of Venezuela, including the world’s largest and most sophisticated aircraft carrier.
Trump has said his goal is to fight drug trafficking, but analysts agree with Maduro that Washington’s ultimate goal is likely to spur regime change in Venezuela.
Fernando Reyes Matta, director of the Center for China Studies at the Andrés Bello University in Chile, considers Maduro’s situation to be critical.
“He has little time left. The support he had in the past is in reality no longer there, apart from certain rhetorical statements,” he told BBC Mundo.
As originally reported, Maduro asked Russia and China for help in improving his military capabilities in late October. The Washington Post.
The American newspaper obtained internal US government documents at the end of October showing that Venezuela had specifically asked Moscow for help in repairing Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, improving radar detection systems and supplying missiles.
Shortly after the report came to light, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was questioned about whether Moscow was providing aid to Caracas. He limited himself to saying that his country maintains constant contact with Venezuela and declined to provide further details.
For her part, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman María Zajárova expressed at a press conference her “firm support for the Venezuelan authorities in defending national sovereignty.”
“Direct aggression will worsen the situation instead of solving problems that can certainly be resolved legally and diplomatically within the legal framework,” Zajárova added.
And on December 7, Russian news agency Tass reported that Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told him that the country stands “side by side” with Venezuela.
“We express our solidarity with Venezuela, with whom we recently signed a strategic partnership and cooperation agreement,” the Tass agency quoted.
“We support Venezuela, as it supports us, in many areas. In these difficult times, we stand in solidarity with Caracas and Venezuelan leaders. We hope that the Trump administration does not exacerbate the situation and lead to a large-scale conflict. We urge them to do so,” he added.
But these reactions are a far cry from what happened in 2018, when Russia sent more than 100 Russian pilots and soldiers and two nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela to show its strength and support against the United States, which had simply ignored the favorable results for Maduro from the National Electoral Council, which was controlled by people close to him.
Reyes Matta, who was also Chilean ambassador to China during the first government of Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010), assures that Venezuela is no longer an important issue for Beijing and Moscow in the current geopolitical context, and even more so after Trump’s arrival in the White House.
“Today there is no reason for either Russia or China to risk defending Venezuela, considering other problems they have, such as Russia and its war in Ukraine and China trying to coexist with President Trump on the international stage,” he adds.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has poured enormous financial and military resources into a war that has depleted its finances and military.
It has also triggered a series of sanctions from the West.
All of this means less money and weapons for ideological allies who have likely taken a back seat to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Neither Russia will risk imposing more sanctions than it already has, nor will China risk having more tariffs imposed on it for defending Maduro,” Vladimir Rouvinski, director of the Politics and International Relations Laboratory (PoInt) at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia, told BBC Mundo.
Relations between the US and China have been marked by trade tensions since Donald Trump took office and announced tariffs against several countries.
Although the situation appeared complicated, a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea in late October, described as positive by both leaders, opened the door to possible agreements.
The U.S. halved a 20 percent tariff on Chinese goods related to controlling the flow of fentanyl, although tariffs on other Chinese goods remain and average nearly 50 percent.
For Beijing, defending Maduro likely means jeopardizing that progress for no gain beyond ideological gains.
According to leaked official documents obtained by The Washington Post, Maduro also sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping calling for “stronger military cooperation” to counter “the escalation between the United States and Venezuela.”
In the letter, Maduro called on the Chinese government to speed up the production of radar detection systems by Chinese companies, presumably so that Venezuela could improve its capabilities.
For many years, Chinese loans to Venezuela were crucial to investment and the development of the country’s economy.
In fact, Venezuela was the main recipient of Chinese loans in Latin America from the mid-2000s to 2016.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Caracas received approximately $50,000 to $60,000 million in funding during this period.
These loans, which accounted for more than 40% of the total loans originating from China in Latin America, made Venezuela a key element in the expansion of Chinese influence in Latin America.
But the country’s economic collapse and the deterioration of its oil industry have led Beijing to reevaluate how much support it wants to give Nicolás Maduro.
In recent years, China has reduced the provision of new loans and now focuses primarily on ensuring the repayment of previous loans.
Rouvinsky estimates that China does not want to damage the relationship with a future transitional government in advance.
“I think China is willing to negotiate with any government that replaces Maduro at some point, and believes that supporting Maduro too much now could have negative consequences if the regime falls,” he adds.
Recently, the Venezuelan president asserted on his radio show Con Maduro that China “publicly supports Venezuela’s right to exercise its sovereignty and peace.”
The director of the Center for Latin American Studies on China at UAB, Fernando Reyes Matta, claims that the political events in Venezuela over the past year have also influenced the changing position of Moscow and Beijing towards the country.
“I don’t think either country is willing to support a regime that has so little internal support. Furthermore, both Russia and China know that the last presidential election clearly had fraudulent features,” he says.
Last year’s election in July was marked by serious allegations of fraud. Although the ruling party-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolás Maduro’s victory, it did not provide evidence or disaggregate data as in previous proceedings.
In addition, the opposition, led by María Corina Machado, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, published election documents showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won.
“This time Maduro is completely alone,” emphasizes Russian political scientist Vladimir Rouwinski. “Russia and China may continue to criticize US intervention, but they are not prepared to go further,” he concludes.
The reaction of both countries makes it clear that the government of Nicolás Maduro can no longer count on the full support of these two powers, which have played an important role in past crises.
This time, the survival of Maduro and his circle will likely depend more on his own resilience and how determined President Donald Trump is to continue his campaign against him as he claims to be the leader of the Suns Cartel, a group recently designated a terrorist organization.
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