What just happened in Venezuela wasn’t just about Maduro. It was a major strategic blow to communist China, says @JMichaelWaller.
Just days before Maduro was removed, Beijing declared it would not give up an inch of its gains in Latin America. Then Trump went and took away one of the CCP’s most critical assets.
Venezuela wasn’t just an ally for the CCP—it was a “linchpin” in the CCP’s global military strategy, he says.
From Caracas, Beijing envisioned projecting naval power across both oceans:
• A blue-water PLA Navy
• A future Atlantic maritime presence
• A foothold in the Caribbean
• Potential leverage over the Panama Canal and U.S. shipping routes from Houston, Galveston, and the Mississippi River Delta to the rest of the world
Venezuela also sat at the heart of China’s Belt and Road strategy: dual-use ports, airports, and facilities designed so Chinese warships could dock anywhere on Earth.
Furthermore, Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Under sanctions, that oil couldn’t be sold on the open market—so China bought it at steep discounts, often paid in yuan or barter, not petrodollars.
Cheap, embargoed oil helped prop up Xi Jinping’s domestic and global agenda. Now that pipeline just collapsed.
OCGFC is the acronym for the owners and controllers of global financialised capital, who pursue their self-interest without ideology. Shahid Bolsen argues that think tanks translate their desires into policies that camouflage their true goals, and that BRICS will be the new UN.
Topics:
Why Venezuela keeps returning as a pressure-point in the Western Hemisphere
How sanctions are structured to punish populations while preserving leverage pathways
Why “regime change” talk persists even when policy signals controlled accommodation
How oil access, payment rails, and licensing become the real battlefield
Where Gulf capital and China’s market gravity fit into the long game
What “managed retreat” looks like when it’s disguised as moral certainty.
This isn’t a speech about who to like or hate. It’s an explanation of how outcomes are engineered—and how to read the story without being trapped inside the script. - MN.
