No grand recalculation

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

U.S.-China relations after the fall of Maduro.

For many, the pressure on Venezuela in the last year made very little sense when countries like China and Russia have seemed the bigger threat.

That may be one reason why a years-old clip from the Amazon Prime show Jack Ryan went viral this week.

It features the title character from the Tom Clancy series, explaining the threat a failing Venezuelan government could pose to the U.S.

AUDIO: Unstable governments are nothing more than the greatest of opportunities…So Russia, China will never be the most major threat, until countries like Venezuela leave the door open to our very own backyard.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: From fiction to nonfiction.

China’s interest in Venezuela is no secret. It invested heavily in Venezuela over the years, with oil as repayment.

Here now to help us connect the dots on why, is Yvonne Chiu of the American Enterprise Institute. She specializes in Indo-Pacific policy and strategy, authoritarianism, and global justice.

Yvonne, thank you for joining us.

YVONNE CHIU: Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

REICHARD: China has poured billions into Venezuela through oil deals and even helped Maduro build his surveillance systems. In your view, what mattered more to Beijing: ideological alignment, strategic leverage in our hemisphere, or, strictly speaking, energy?

CHIU: So all of the above is the short answer. In the very beginning, I think ideological alignment mattered. In recent years, it has been the energy supplies, the oil, and that, of course, dovetails with the strategic leverage. So, I don't think you can separate those two entirely. So, the upshot is, if the U.S. made this move in Venezuela in order to, as part of its bigger strategic competition with China, which I'm not sure that that was the purpose, but if that were the goal, then that is a very short term move against China.

REICHARD: Okay, thinking about other reverberations in Asia, then, do you think Beijing looks at this Maduro operation and then decides anything about the American resolve elsewhere, specifically Taiwan?

CHIU: This does two things. It does say that the U.S. is willing to use force in situations that we wouldn't have expected before, but it doesn't say that the U.S. is willing to defend democracies, including advanced liberal democracies like Taiwan. It just says the U.S. is willing to use force to pursue its narrow economic interests overseas. So that, in and of itself, doesn't change Beijing's calculus on Taiwan. What it does do, which you're alluding to, is that it starts to create this permission structure for other countries to say, hey, look right. And I think what Beijing would do, which it already is doing, is playing that rhetorical game of, well, you invaded another country and or, you know, you kidnapped the leader of another country. And that was, you know, in foreign intervention that we strongly condemn. We, however, consider Taiwan to be our own territory. This is a domestic dispute, and therefore totally different from Venezuela and basically perfectly acceptable. Now we know that that is not the case. Taiwan is not part of China, but it doesn't stop Beijing from playing those rhetorical games, and it doesn't stop the world from going along with it for the sake of their own interests.

REICHARD: All right. Assume that you are advising policymakers. What concrete indicators should they be watching for, military, diplomatic, economic in order to gauge how China is interpreting this moment?

CHIU: When China looks at what the U.S. has done, I think they will be, they're going to be a little wary, right? I think that they would. They would also be surprised at the Trump administration's willingness to use military force in this way. On the other hand, I'm not sure that they themselves would feel particularly threatened, because in many ways, Venezuela and Maduro were easy targets, right? China, not so much. And we have seen from Trump's relations with foreign leaders is that he really appreciates strong authoritarian leaders. And so I think China would look at what the U.S. is doing and think, okay, the U.S. is actually, they are following on the National Security Strategy. They are focusing on the western hemisphere. They are focusing on their backyards. They are continuing this kind of Trump policy of very aggressive surgical strikes. But that not, isn't necessarily going to translate into a broader global strategy. And so in many ways, I think China will take a little bit of comfort that the Trump administration is not focused on Asia. You know, in the indicators, I think they just wrapped up these military exercises surrounding Taiwan, and basically it was a multi-day blockade, right? We didn't want to call it that, but it was a multi-day blockade. They have already isolated Taiwan. They're very aggressive with their, you know, with the regional neighbors. So actually, in terms of concrete indicators to how China is interpreting this, I think China's already doing it. They're already telling us that they're, they have intentions to be the regional hegemon. And, you know, the question is just whether we're willing to live with that and the implications for the United States.

REICHARD: There's so much more we could talk about here. I know time beckons. Yvonne Chu is with the American Enterprise Institute. She specializes in Indo, Pacific policy and strategy, authoritarianism and global justice. Yvonne, thank you so much for your time and expertise.

CHIU: It's my pleasure.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.