On July 28, Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, congratulated Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro on “his successful re-election.” According to Lin Jian, China wishes to enrich its “strategic partnership with Venezuela and bring more benefits to the two peoples.”
China supports Maduro with the intention of recovering the multimillion-dollar investments it has made in Venezuela through the so-called ‘Chinese Fund’ created during the government of Hugo Chavez. But this is an illusion, since all the plans announced with Chinese financing have gone down the drain.
The projects included the manufacturing of cars and buses, the construction of popular housing, a satellite program, a cable car, a bridge over the Orinoco River, railroad systems, thermoelectric plants, and many others. But the little that was done is destroyed and abandoned; and the rest was simply never started. The Chinese Fund only served to swell the pockets of corrupt officials.
According to a report compiled by The Dialogue and Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, Venezuela received around $60 billion in loans from China between 2007 and 2015.
China had the foresight to guarantee the payment of the debt with oil, but even so, they failed to imagine that, in just a few short years, Chávez and Maduro were going to destroy PDVSA, a Venezuelan oil company that had until then been one of the most successful in the world. Therefore, endorsing the fraud perpetrated by Maduro will not allow China to recover its money; in fact, it will further harm the Chinese government in other respects.
The indisputable reality is that Maduro lost the elections by landslide, as demonstrated in the official minutes. The official minutes are also supported by the reports of international observers who were present during the election, such as the Carter Center and the UN Panel of Experts. Upon seeing itself defeated, the Venezuelan regime implemented a violent repression scheme, as documented by organizations including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for Nicolás Maduro. “It is time for justice,” Luis Almagro said on August 28th at an emergency meeting of the organization in Washington. In fact, The ICC has been investigating Maduro’s government for crimes against humanity in the country. Supporting Maduro, as China is doing, means endorsing the crimes against humanity that he commits, generating an enormous rejection by the Venezuelan people.
Moreover, Maduro’s continuity in power will provoke more chaos, humanitarian crises, and ungovernability; and his duration in office will be limited in time, after which he will have to resign. The whole country is against Maduro, his political party is divided, his international allies have abandoned him, more sanctions against the Venezuelan regime are coming soon, and the International Criminal Court is investigating him. It is simply impossible for him to stay in power with those adverse conditions.
From a purely pragmatic point of view, a relationship with a serious and efficient government, headed by the winner of the July 28th election, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, would be much more convenient for China, despite the existing political and ideological differences.
