Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, January 5, 2026 Real World News
The communist regime in Beijing has strongly condemned the U.S. operation that captured Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro, calling the operation a violation of sovereignty and international law.
What has shaken China’s regime to its core, is watching decades of strategic and economic investment in Venezuela being put at risk, analysts say.
Meanwhile, at least 15 U.S. sanctioned oil tankers have reportedly broken the complete blockade of Venezuelan oil exports since Maduro’s capture, using so-called “dark mode” tactics to evade capture.
President Donald Trump’s objective “was not Venezuela itself. Caracas was the terrain, not the target. The real goal was strategic: to erase Russian and Chinese influence from America’s backyard,” Casey Fleming, an author and national security advisor, wrote on LinkedIn.
Venezuela As ‘Forward Outpost’
“For years, Moscow and Beijing treated Venezuela as a forward outpost — supplying weapons, financing oil flows, embedding advisers, and testing the limits of U.S. tolerance. That tolerance has now ended.”
Related: ‘Non-hemispheric’ China gets a call from ‘strategic partner’ Nicholas Maduro, December 18, 2025
Gabriele Iuvinale, geopolitical analyst and owner of EXTREMA RATIO – OSINT, wrote on LinkedIn:
“For years, Venezuela has been a pillar of China’s energy security through the model of loans in exchange for oil. Between 2007 and 2016, China provided over $105 billion, most of which was secured by daily shipments of crude oil. Specific agreements required the state-owned company PDVSA to send up to 330,000 barrels per day to Beijing to honor the debt. Venezuela’s share of China’s oil imports amounts to about 4% of its total supply.”
Since the first Trump Administration, U.S. sanctions limited Venezuela’s ability to sell crude oil internationally. But “China has remained a key importer, having been largely exempted from these restrictions. The fall of the Maduro government now threatens the validity of these contracts and the stability of supplies, just as China depends on imports for half of its needs,” Iuvinale wrote.
“In addition to oil, instability is undermining advanced technological cooperation,” Iunivale added. “In September 2023, the two nations signed memoranda for satellite image processing and digital transformation. Venezuela had even made its ground stations available to support Chinese lunar missions, a geostrategic asset that now appears uncertain.
“With an estimated tens of billions in outstanding debt and trade reaching $6.4 billion in 2024, Beijing fears that a new political course in Caracas could lead to unilateral debt restructuring or the dismantling of this alliance architecture.”
From a Unipolar World to ‘Regional Dominance’
Fleming noted that Venezuela was not a coup but a geopolitical signal:
“What we are witnessing is not disorder, but redistribution. A world quietly dividing into spheres: the Americas firmly under U.S. control, vast parts of Eurasia contested — or conceded — to China and Russia, and Europe increasingly forced to confront its strategic dependency.
“The unipolar moment is not returning. But regional dominance is.
“A swift, decisive outcome in Venezuela may encourage confidence in Washington — and impatience elsewhere.
“If Trump believes deterrence has been reestablished through force, others may test where it truly ends.
“Venezuela was not the end of something. It was the beginning of a new phase.
“The world is not calming down.
“It is being reorganized — decisively, unapologetically, and at speed. Expect increased friction along the way.”
The New York Times reported on Monday that the now-departed tankers had been docked in Venezuelan ports for weeks. The vessels used techniques employed by the modern “ghost fleet” of sanction skirting ships, including painting names of decommissioned vessels on ships’ hulls, misrepresenting their positions, and departing in coordinated fashion in order to escape the blockade.
Four tankers, now some 30-miles off port, were tracked by satellite sailing east, according to the New York Times. These tankers did not secure authorization from the new interim government led by Maduro’s former vice president, the report said, citing internal communications and two anonymous sources in the Venezuelan oil industry. The remaining ships have not been located and are not broadcasting any signals.
“The embargo on all Venezuelan oil remains in full effect,” Trump said on Saturday during a press conference detailing Maduro’s capture. “The American armada remains poised in position, and the United States retains all military options until United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied.”
All fifteen of the identified tankers are under U.S. sanctions Trump imposed on Dec. 16 against Maduro, according to a Reuters report Monday.
Related: Iran’s 20-year treaty with Venezuela includes ownership of 2.5 million acres of land, September 27, 2022
Related: China defies Washington with airlift to Venezuela, May 21, 2019
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