Amid acute escalation of tensions between the US and Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro mentioned China, the largest economic rival in the US, during his speech on domestic education.
While talking about a tutorial to learn how to do new things during the closing of “Bolivar Teacher’s First Educational Conference”, Maduro stopped to present his new mobile phone.
Maduro said he communicated with Xi through that new phone call by satellite.
“You want to learn something, you want to look for a tutorial. You want to learn how to use the camera that the cameras the cameras have there, you put “camera tutorials, etc.” I want to learn how to handle this new Huawei phone (Chinese flagship brand of mobile devices). This is the most advanced in the world.
“Ni Hao, Ni Hao (Hello). Xiexie, Xiexie (Thank you),” the Venezuelan president quickly added, pretending to call in the mandarin.
While that may seem minor, it was yet another indication of Venezuela’s need to publicize a settlement with China amidst tensions with the US.
In addition to Xi Jinping’s “gifts,” there were other nods to China last week, including diplomatic visits and messages from Asian countries. Both took place on Thursday.
Maduro met with China’s Venezuelan ambassador, Lang Fu, to celebrate the progress between the two countries, particularly in the economy.
“I am pleased with my mutual cooperation with Sister China this year in 2025, especially with progress in economic, science, technology and artificial intelligence projects,” Maduro wrote on social media.
Since being appointed as Venezuela ambassador in May 2023, Hu has joined in celebrating the relationship between the Latin American country and economic progress and criticizing pressure from Washington.
Last year, on the sidelines of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Venezuela, Hu criticized the US “unilateral enforcement measures.”
“China and Venezuela are united in defending the rights and interests of developing countries in the face of unilateral US enforcement measures to build a more fair and equitable multipolar world based on mutual respect,” Hu said.
These words from the Chinese ambassador came at the same time that the US raised concerns about the arrest of opposition activists ahead of Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election.
Maduro later declared the winner by election officials under the strict control of the Unified Socialist Party (PSUV) of Maduro in Venezuela.
Opposition parties questioned the election process and claimed that the candidate won the vote, which earned many support from the international community. The Maduro government ensures that the election is legal, although detailed results have never been made public.
Beijing shared concerns following the recent deployment of US troops in the Caribbean area near Venezuela.
“China opposes any movement that violates the objectives and principles of the UN Charter and the sovereignty and security of the country. It opposes the use of force or threats in international relations and the interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs. We asked about the issue at a press conference.
This week, the Trump administration carried out major military deployments in waters surrounding Latin America and the Caribbean as part of a fierce effort to combat drug cartels, two U.S. defense secretaries told CNN.
The deployment comes to help the US harden the drug trafficking story about Maduro and his government – including nuclear-powered attack submarines, an additional P8 Poseidon reconnaissance jet, several destroyers, and a guided missile cruiser as part of the mission.
Maduro announced the deployment of 4.5 million militias across national territory, saying “the empire will not touch the sacred ground of Venezuela,” minimizing the country’s “threat to peace.”
The president assured his country that he had the ability to defend against conflict.
“Let the world know, let the empire know: Venezuela has more needs than today, so we are living in peace and we are going to continue in peace,” Maduro said on the TV. “We have the strength of David and Goliath,” he added before recounting details of the biblical story.
Meanwhile, White House press chief Caroline Leavitt said the US is preparing to “use all the resources of that power” after being consulted about its deployment with 4,000 military personnel in the Caribbean, with the goal of “controlling the flow of drugs into the country and bringing the person responsible to justice.”
US Department of Defense officials told CNN that the deployed ship had not been ordered to head to the edge of Venezuela’s territorial sea.
The relationship with Beijing has been commercially useful for Caracas for some time, and has been in a deep political and economic crisis.
“The support that Venezuela has (from China), especially at the economic level, has helped prevent this deepening of the deep economic crisis,” Jose Antonio Hernandez Macias, a researcher in Latin American Studies at the University of Mexico (UNAM), told CNN.
China has a trade surplus with Venezuela. It exports approximately US$3.45 billion in products to South American countries, but according to updated Economic Complexation (OEC) data by 2023, there is no $2.71 billion in surplus imported for the Asian economy.
In this sense, China has benefited economically from its relationship with Venezuela, and the OEC adds that its main export product to the world is oil.
Meanwhile, the US is in a trade deficit with Venezuela, and the products exported to Venezuela export more products than that. Trade balances support Venezuela at over US$1.3 billion, according to OEC data.
Therefore, Venezuela is a strategic ally to China in the economy, and is trying to value its interest in the region by showing its stance towards the US deployment, UNAM experts said.
“The oil that exists in Essequibo, the territory that Venezuela and Guyana dispute, plays an important role in this issue (…) Not only is it exploited by the US, there are also Chinese companies in the region,” explained Hernandez Macias.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a statement by the Guyana government on Friday. It expressed “serious concerns” about the threats to local peace and security brought about by transnational organized crime and narcoterrorism, often accompanied by criminal networks like the Venezuelan sun cartel.
Recently, the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that Maduro is the leader of the Sands cartel criminal group, doubled its pay by $50 million for information that led to the arrest of Venezuelan president. Additionally, the US has designated the Sands cartel as an international terrorist organization. The charges against Maduro over allegations of drug trafficking, repeatedly denied by the Venezuelan government, are nothing new. They date back to 2020, when the US pointed Maduro as the leader of the Sands cartel, initially providing $15 million for information that led to his arrest.
Amid this new conflict between the US and Venezuela, “there is that there are conditions that not only exist to defend the Venezuelan government, but also to have access to energy resources throughout the region,” Hernandez Macias added.
On Friday, Reuters reported that Chinese private companies have begun to misuse two Venezuela oil fields, and planned to invest more than $1 billion in a project that will produce 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day by the end of 2026 under a 20-year production stock agreement in 2024.
Although there are mutual economic benefits, according to Gabriel Pastor, an analyst at Uruguay-based think tank De Estudios de la Realidad Económicay Social (Ceres), Maduro is isolated from the world, and China’s position in the deployment of the US military speaks volume worldwide.
“(China’s position) says something everyone can expect, but that doesn’t mean that China will intervene in the conflict by supporting Venezuela,” the pastor told CNN. This is a “political correct statement” that changes nothing for Venezuela, as “no concrete action” has been announced to support the Latin American country.
Contributors to CNN’s Gonzalo Zegarra, Natasha Bertrand and Germán Patir.
