Video shows Chinese special forces conducting a so-called “decapitation drill” only days after the U.S. forces arrested Venezuela’s Nicholas Maduro. It was Beijing’s message to Washington that it can do the same thing against Taiwan.
The successful U.S. raid on Venezuela has struck a major blow to China’s Latin American strategy, according to China expert Gordon Chang.
“China has used Venezuela as its beachhead and is a very important country for China,” Chang said. “China used Venezuela not only as a place to get cheap oil, but it also was a place very much for military penetration.”
Venezuela had become the largest purchaser of Chinese military equipment in Latin America, some of which failed miserably during the U.S. raid.
According to Dr. Evan Ellis, Latin American Research Professor at the U.S. Army War College, the event will not remove Chinese influence in Venezuela overnight. It’s too vast.
“(China’s) also in (Venezuela’s) mineral sector, working with corporations as well. It’s also deeply embedded in the telecommunications sector, in the retail sector and in other places,” Ellis explained.
China has projects all over Latin America, from ports to rail, factories, mines, and hydroelectric plants.
However, in Venezuela, it has been building infrastructure that could be used for war against the United States.
Ellis said, “If we ever went to war with the PRC in the Indo-Pacific, their ability to use access to Western Hemisphere space to target U.S. satellites and indeed, perhaps communicate with some of their own offensive vehicles, they have something called a fractional orbital bombardment system that would be very important.”
“Important” in helping China kill orbiting U.S. satellites.
The loss of Maduro is only the latest in a string of setbacks for Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Xi is purging the military after what some say was a coup attempt. Chang says the nation remains mired in a social and economic malaise, typified by young people’s refusal to have children. The birthrate last year hit the lowest level since the communist revolution in 1949.
“And that’s why they call this the garbage time in history,” Chang told us. “People in China are extremely pessimistic about the direction of their country.”
Under pressure from Trump, some Latin American countries may be cooling toward China. However, Victor Gao, considered an unofficial spokesman for the Chinese government with the Center on China and Globalization in Beijing, says China has no intention of leaving Latin America.
Gao told Singapore TV channel CNA, “President Trump and the U.S. government pretends that they can resurrect the Monroe Doctrine or insert the ‘Donroe’ doctrine to Latin America is completely false. China will never allow that to happen.”
“If they want to have war, they will get war,” he said.
And in a recent war game, Chinese forces fought a simulated battle in Latin America.
