Q REPORTS (EFE) — The U.S. intervention in Venezuela is testing China’s influence in Latin America and has left the region’s countries between a rock and a hard place, pressured by Washington but reluctant to turn their backs on Beijing due to the enormous commercial interests at stake.
Hours before being captured by U.S. troops, Maduro met with China’s top diplomat for Latin American affairs, Special Envoy Qiu Xiaoqi, whose presence in Venezuela at that precise moment suggests that the Asian giant was completely unaware of what was about to happen.
However, what does surprise China is the US’s irritation at its growing influence in the region, where direct Chinese investment increased sevenfold between 2010 and 2019, compared to the previous decade, reaching US$14.71 billion in 2024 alone, according to data from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
These are strategic investments that have alleviated Latin America’s endemic deficit in transportation, communications, and technology infrastructure: the port of Chancay in Peru, electric car factories in Mexico and Brazil, and the fourth bridge over the Panama Canal are some examples.
A Historic Setback
“For Latin American countries, the situation is ruinous, a tragedy. The U.S. will never be able to meet the expectations arising from its economic or commercial relationship with China. Nor does it intend to. We will witness a peculiar kind of ‘acupuncture’ in which the U.S. will dictate what can and cannot be done with China,” argues Xulio Ríos, former director of the Observatory of Chinese Politics.
In his opinion, “it is not only a humiliating affront to national dignity and sovereignty but also a historic setback for the region, whose right to development will be sacrificed on the altar of submission to the empire.”
However, several diplomatic sources consulted by EFE believe that there is no “Donroe Doctrine” (as US President Donald Trump has dubbed his new crusade for regional dominance) that can reverse two decades of Chinese progress in a matter of months or undo the strong trade ties forged during that period, including Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, and others currently under negotiation.
Beijing is now Latin America’s second-largest trading partner, with trade reaching US$518.47 billion in 2024, a 6% increase over the previous year. Soybeans and mining products imported by China, and electric vehicles, industrial machinery, and technology sold by the Asian giant, account for a significant portion of this trade.
Economic Pragmatism Over Ideology
Most Latin American countries have strengthened their embassies in China in recent years, illustrating how these ties are governed by pragmatism rather than political alignment, the same sources agree. For example, consider the diluted campaign promises of Argentina’s Javier Milei, who pledged to sever ties with Beijing but has failed to do so.
Furthermore, the Chinese market is one of the main alternatives for Latin America in the face of the US trade war, and the same is true in the opposite scenario.
Politically, and despite the increasingly evident rightward shift in the region, China still has powerful allies like Brazil and Colombia, countries that have unequivocally condemned US actions. However, according to Ríos, “the neoliberal wave represents a growing alignment of the region’s governments with US interests.”
“Left-wing governments could respond by forging closer ties with China, but this doesn’t solve their main problem: security,” an area where China’s influence in the region is practically nonexistent. Xi’s Nightmare
In the short term, some analysts don’t expect Beijing to opt for open confrontation with Washington, but rather to use what has happened to try to reassert itself as the undisputed leader of the Global South in the face of Washington’s intimidating tactics.
“Beijing will maintain a high diplomatic profile but will tend to avoid confronting the US over Latin America because it could bring greater pressure in East Asia,” says Song Luzheng, an International Relations researcher at Fudan University, quoted by local media.
Xulio Ríos believes that “China will try to secure its interests and investments and limit the damage,” although he doesn’t rule out active self-defense “because this dynamic won’t stop in Latin America, and it knows it.”
“Once Trump disciplines his partners and allies, including Europeans, he will go even more decisively after China, which is his great strategic rival. And Trump’s dream of ‘making America great again’ will become Xi’s nightmare,” he predicts.