Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the “world’s judge” after the United States captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
The world’s second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.
Almost half of China’s purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.
They literally can’t. Nor can the US dump theirs.
The US, the EU, and China are economically tied to one another. One of the reasons there hasn’t been a shooting war between the East and West is how much we depend on the other’s economy. Without foreign backed assets, there’s nothing to trade against.
Chinese made goods are bought with American dollars. If they’re not putting them back in to the US, there’s no need to take them in the first place. And then who, exactly, would China be making all that crap for?
That really hasn’t stopped the US government recently.