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On January tewod, Nicolas Maduro met with Chinese officials in Caracas.
Sibil Mbiado President in pin Paramerica latinbe.
There's video of that meeting on Maduro's Instagram account. The narrator touts Chinese investment in Venezuela in energy and technology and infrastructure, and praises the relationship between the two nations.
Yeahiva Venezuela, you know Nidas.
Hours later, Maduro was captured by US special forces.
Well, that was very unfortunate, tell me for the Chinese government. There's no question in my mind that the Chinese, in a way where humiliated.
Nicholas Burns was a US diplomat for decades under Republican and Democratic presidents, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Most recently, he was the US Ambassador to China under President Biden. China and Venezuela have had what the Chinese call an all weather strategic partnership, a very close relationship. China promised to stand by Venezuela through thick and thin, Burns explains, through any crisis.
But when that crisis came, Chinese could have just send Nicholas Maduro. So I think, frankly, this has been a loss of face since, been a loss of influence for China, certainly in Venezuela. And I have to imagine that some countries in Latin America will begin to question whether an all encompassing embrace of China, and some of them have made that is really in their long term interest.
I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from Bloomberg News today, A conversation with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, about how Beijing will respond to the US incursion into Venezuela, how it could change China's approach to Taiwan, and how the so called don Roe doctrine, President Trump's focus on the Western Hemisphere could hand China an edge on the world stage.
When I sat down with Ambassador Nicholas Burns this week, he brought up an article he read in twenty twenty four as he made his way to what ended up being the last summit meeting between President Biden and President.
She an extraordinary front page story which essentially said that in two thousand and two, the United States was a leading trade partner of every country in South America, but by twenty twenty four, the People's Repubma fifth China was the leading trade partner of every country in South America, with the exception at that time of Columbia.
It illustrated vividly, Burns says, the extraordinary commitment China has made to compete for influence in Latin America, and Venezuela has been a key part of that. Over nearly two decades, China has loaned the country tens of billions of dollars, and Venezuela has paid interest on those loans with oil. I asked Ambassador Burns about how China responded to the capture of Nicholas Maduro and to the Trump administration's assertion it's going to control the flow of oil from Venezuela.
How do its policy priorities in South America change as a result of what happened to Maduro.
Well, that Chinese are going to compete. They're not going to leave the field in a new Monroe doctrine just because the United States has said move out of Latin America. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the view that we should push back against the more competitive Chinese actions against the United States, certainly in Latin America for instance. The Trump administration has been right to say in the Penwa Canal that at Chinese state company shouldn't control the
infed forts. That just makes sense from an American national security standpoint. But they will compete. China is a major creditor to Venezuela, and if part of the solution to try to stabilize Venezuela in the next six to twelve months turns out to be a big debt negotiation, China will demand a seat at the table. They'll also look for fishers in the US relationship with Venezuela and try to exploit them. You know, very cynically. China was a
major supporter of this brutal regime, the Maduro regime. Many of the people who ran that machine are still in place, and so I think they'll look to see if they can divide the United States from that regime. And so I don't think they're going to quit. And this is all part of this global competition that's been underway for many years now between the US and China.
So much of President Trump's focus has been on and continues to be on Venezuela's oil. You were talking about the debt that Venezuela is into China and there was this oil for Day program that was in place. How critical is that oil to China today.
I think it's more symbolically important than it is in real terms. Chinese imports of Venezuelan oil represent about four percent of China's total imports around the world, so it's not that strategically important, but I think it's politically important for them that they not be shut out of that market, which certainly China's very interested in developing the entire South
American market. If you think of Brazil, for instance, where China has made extraordinary inroads with Chinese electric vehicles, with Chinese purchases of Brazilian soybeans, and so I think you'll see the Chinese ramp up their state enterprise investment in many different parts of South America, and it's going to be interesting to watch to see if they can be successful.
As you mentioned, China likely ones has seen at the table as all of this unfolds. A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry set at a press conference the Lawful Rights and interests of China in Venezuela must be protected. How big a concern is that to the Chinese that they could lose access to what they help build? Where does that leave China in trying to plot a path forward?
Well, I think they're two Chinese concerns here, and I don't have sympathy for either of them. Onely is again they don't want to see a dramatic decline in their trade and investment activities in South America, I was even Latin America, because they see it as such a major market, both in importing critical food stuff but also in terms
of making inroads for their most competitive industries. But secondly, this may turn out to help the United States and help Scott best In, for instance, in his trade, tariff and supply chain negotiations with the Chinese. There's the truth, as you know, between the United States and China from the extraordinary tariff and supply chain the wars of twenty
twenty five. But it's a very unstable truth. And so if the United States suddenly, because of this intervention in Venezuela, has a lock on the oil industry, that's going to help perhaps the United States, as the Chinese the United States try to one up each other, and certainly I hope the United States can be successful. I'm not rooting
for China at all. Having served as ambassador, I've seen how quick they are to deploy unfair trade practices against our own companies, and I hope the administration can be successful, certainly in the supply chain issue as well as on tariff.
You mentioned the role that China is playing across the continent. Can you put into context of Venezuela's role in that, well.
I think it's it was a function of both Russia, China and other authoritarian countries coalescing just support an unlawful regime in Caracas. Maduro stole the election of twenty twenty four. He wasn't a legitimate leader, and yet he had this support, very overt political support from Jijinping and from Vladimir Putin. And so I think in this sense it's been a loss of influence for all those authoritarians, which is a
very positive development. And that's what they've lost. There are now and some of their other primary supporters, Cuba being the most notable. Well, we saw what happened, and the US Special forces out maneuvered completely the Cuban Craetorian guard around Nicholas Maduro and thus throughout the President Trump has made against you. But it has to be concentrating mines
in Havana. So I think the tables have been turned a little bit here in the global competition, these very self confident uoritarian powers and China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, the tables have been turned against certainly the Iranians, certainly the vath Whalens as part of this in the Western hemisphere. And so you know, we're not going to know how this all plays out until several years of history of past.
But this has been a dramatic diminution of Chinese influence in the Western hemisphere.
Well, I want to turn to what's being called the don Roe doctrine.
They now call it the Dunro document. I don't know, it's uh Monroe doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don't forget about it anymore.
Under name, President Trump making no bones about the fact that he wants to focus on the Western hemisphere. How does that change China's approach to foreign policy?
Well, the Chinese now know that the game has been changed that the United States under President Trump, it's going to be very aggressive and pushing back against aspects of Chinese influence. That's what this new Chump corollary to the Monroe doctrine that was announced in the National Security Strategy Report, That's what that means. But I think that the administration would be more effective if they stopped talking just about oil and they started talking more about the real strength
of the United States. The President has talked almost solely about the petroleum oil benefits to the United States. I think most American presidents, if not all American presidents but the last century, would have said, we want the hemisphere to be governed by rule of law, societies by governments
that are elected by the people of the country. We want human rights on her That's a glaring omission in the policy of the Trump administration, and it's not going to be attractive at leads to average people in Venezuela or other parts of Central and South America if the United States is seen to be saying we only care about your resources.
Coming up, how President Trump's incursion in Venezuela could influence Presidents She and Putin and how it's shaping President Trump's designs on Greenland. The US military blockade of Venezuela and the apprehension of Nicholas Maduro has put other countries on edge. President Trump has put Cuba on notice, and he suggested the US could strike cartels in Mexico. And then there's Greenland. When President Trump talks about Greenland, he often brings up China.
He's made unsupported claims that there are Chinese destroyers off Greenland. And here's what he said when he met with oil executives last week at the White House.
I get along very well with President she I'm going to go over to China in April, but I don't want them as a neighbor in Greenland not going to happen anywhere.
To what degree are President Trump's designs on Greenland do you think tied to China.
Well, it's hard to know because there are so many different explanations being offered by the Trump administration about this really problematic focus on Greenland. And I just say this, there's no question that there is a longer term strategic threat given the fact that the passageway between Asia and the Atlantic is now navigable in the summer months, there is more of a threat which took me from Russia. Greenland is very strategic. We have to contain and toture Russia.
But the way to do that is to work through the NATO alliance. There is an Arctic Council of the eight Arctic countries. Russia is a member. The other seven members are all members of NATO, including Denmark and Greenland as part of the Danish Kingdom, and of course the
United States. So if the concern here is that there is a threat from Russia, and if maybe the long term strategic partner of China, the way to deal with it is to have a united NATO and seven of those nations, including the United States, working with Denmark and others, and not attempting to buy or acquire by force Greenland from a vaunted and very reliable NATO ally Denmark. And if you think about this, I was ambassador to NATO between two thousand and one and two thousand and five.
I remember very clearly what happened on nine to eleven that afternoon in Brussels. As we looked at the Twin Towers falling in New York, three thousand people dead. We looked at the Anegon being attacked, and the Danish ambassador called me and said they were with us, they would defend us, they would invoke Article five of the NATO Treaty an attack on one as an attack on all, which we did. The next day. The Danes went into Afghanistan. Suffer a higher level of casualties on the per capita basis.
They suffered the most of any of the troop contributing nations in terms of the numbers of people of their soldiers who were killed and were wounded. They really stood with us, And now suddenly we have a situation and it's hard to believe we've come to this point where the leading member of NATO is threatening another NATO member with military force that will break NATO. If the Trump administration tries to use a military force to occupy Freeland, that will be the end of NATO. It will cause
irreparably harm to the United States. It will be a shameful episode in our history. And I've got to believe that the Trump administration is going to find a way to back down from this ludicrous claim that President Trump has made to Greenland itself.
The journalist Christopher Being wrote a piece for Bloomberg business Week recently, and he made what I think is a really interesting point about how this could backfire on the US. He wrote, President Trump's norm busting incursion in Venezuela makes China look like the adult in the room. This reinforces the country's reputation in the region as a calm, predictable partner with whom one can do business. Do you agree with that.
Well, it's what the Chinese are trying to insinuate, not just insinuate. China is saying we are the defender of the international order that was established after the Second World War. We are the cautious and responsible party in the United States is an agent of instability. That's a little bit of softistry from the Chinese. The Chinese are threatening Taiwan with military force as we speak. That Chinese have stolen in the Scratlely and Parasol Islands of the South China
see territory from both Vietnam and the Philippines. That Chinese are harassing Japan over Japanese control of the Sinkoku Islands in the East Chenesee. The Chinese have been contesting Indian sovereignty on their border in the him in Malayas. So it's like the plot calling the kettle black. You know, there was a meeting several months ago that the South Africans hosted, and of course the Chinese were there, and the South Africans and most of our major allies in
the world, and the United States state away. If we continue to act unilaterally, and if we continue to lecture the European allies as if they're the problem of the world and yet not be tough enough in our rhetoric towards both China and Russia, I think that these authoritarian regimes are going to make more in ropes in global public opinion about who's the agent of instability and who isn't. I would never call President Trump on isolation, as he's not.
He's certainly an interventionist. But the United States, I think is strongest when we're working with and through our allies, our NATO allies like Denmark and Each Asia, our allies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, our strategic partner India, Australia. I really hope that Trump administration will get back to what has been so successful for every president since Truman and Eisenhower, and that is the United States leads these alliances that China and Russia do not have. That's our
strategic advantage over them. But if we drive them away, then we weaken ourselves.
You mentioned Taiwan, and I'm curious how the US intervention in Venezuela might have changed President She's approach to Taiwan. The reporter David Sanger asked President Trump about this during an interview he and his colleagues at The New York Times conducted last week. Sanger asked, have you created a president that you may come to regret later on?
No, because this was a real threat.
But Trump added, Taiwan is quote a source of pride for President She.
He considers it to be part of China, and that's up to him what he's going to be doing.
But you know, President Trump said, I've expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, meaning invaded Taiwan.
I don't think he'll do that. I hope he does. You don't think you've set a president?
Do you think? To borrow David Sanger's question, President Trump has created a president here he may come to regret later on.
It is a slippery slow I don't think the Chinese feel that the People's Liberation Army is ready to invade Taiwan, at least not ready to mount a cross straight invasion, a combined forces operation of naval vessels, of submarines, aircraft. It's extraordinarily difficult to do. And the Taiwanese, of course, have been watching the Ukrainians in the ways the Ukrainians have held off a much larger Russian army through drone warfare, through intelligence operations, and so I think there's a doubt
in the Chinese mind about it. But there's no question that Chichinpin wants to bring Taiwan under the control directly of the People's Republic of China, and should he attempt to do that at some point in the future, he may well use what the United States did in Venezuela to justify, well, if the United States can invade a sovereign member of the United Nations, that's the Chinese line. Of course, we have the right to take back what they believe incorrectly is a territory of the People's Republic
of China. I think it also makes Putin's argument about wanting to claim Ukrainian territory. At least you know, in the minds of some people, not you, not me, a more plausible explanation of what they're trying to do. So we're giving them a tactical advantage and how they describe what their own strategies are in the case of China, Taiwan, the case of Russia Ukraine, and that's very ill advised for the United States to be doing.
Ambassador Burns, thank you very.
Much, David. Thank you always a pleasure.
This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerat. The show is hosted by me wanha and Sarah Holder. The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Patty Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Chrisky, Naomi Julia Press, Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shavin, Alex se Cura, Julia Weaver, Young Young, and take Yasuzawa. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg dot Com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
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