China’s relationship with the West is on course for a crisis. Already unsustainable economic and financial imbalances are increasingly compounded by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) reckless, arrogant behavior: Beijing’s threats to murder a Canadian citizen in cold blood have infuriated the broadly defined West.
The Western-Chinese relationship might have reached its lowest point since the Tiananmen Square Massacre. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s (習近平) decisions on Venezuela could determine how deep the bottom goes.
Xi’s decisions in the next few days and months over the Venezuela issue have immense practical and symbolic implications.
In practical terms, the Chavistas’ incompetence limits Venezuelan crude production, lifting oil prices and harming the world economy — and the Chinese economy — by hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
The regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has no hope of paying its external creditors, including China, and is presiding over a long-running economic catastrophe that is harming tens of millions of people and destabilizing the region. China’s practical interests in Venezuela seem very clear.
Xi’s Venezuelan decisions might carry even more symbolic value, as they occur within the context of a truly ugly year in Chinese domestic and foreign policy. The Orwellian social credit system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been supplemented by concentration camps in Xinjiang.
In foreign relations the PRC has resorted to hostage diplomacy and kidnapping Western citizens; pursued increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea; engaged in rhetorical support for free trade, but continued predatory protectionism; and has even emerged as a loan shark to developing countries.
If Xi stands by Maduro — against China’s own economic interests and with a dictator presiding over a famine — there should be no doubt about the character of the PRC.
The broadly defined West should insist that Xi clearly and publicly reject the Maduro regime and stand with the Venezuelan people and the international community.
The West should not accept a non-committal response from Xi: The PRC often uses Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime to voice unpopular opinions it would rather not express.
If Xi stands with Maduro, the US and the broadly defined West should move to restrict economic, political and technological exchanges with the PRC and prepare for full-spectrum competition.
If Xi chooses a responsible path, the US and the broadly defined West should seek to expand areas of mutual interest, including on climate change, the macroeconomy — subject to serious and long-overdue domestic and external-facing reforms within China — and person-to-person exchanges.
This is a very important moment for Venezuela, China and the world. If Xi supports Maduro, he could inaugurate a new Cold War.
Joe Webster is the editor of China-Russia Report. The views expressed here are his own.
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