‘It ought to provide a deterrent’: what US action in Venezuela means for Taiwan | Taiwan

The sight of a hostile regional superpower launching an overnight raid to depose the leader of a smaller neighbouring country could easily have sent pulses in Taiwan racing.

The US on Saturday revealed the details of a surprise raid to capture Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, who was whisked away to the US, where he was frogmarched into a court in New York on Monday.

Commentators in China immediately drew comparisons to how an assault on Taiwan could play out.

China, a country with more than 1.4 billion people and the world’s biggest armed forces, has long had designs on Taiwan, a self-governing island of 23 million in its back yard. The imbalance in power is comparable to that between the US, which possesses the world’s most powerful army, and Venezuela, a small, middle-income country of just 30m which, like Taiwan, relies on friendly countries for its defence.

On Monday, Emily Thornberry, the chair of the UK’s foreign affairs committee, warned that China and Russia may be emboldened by the lack of condemnation for the US’s actions. But events in the Americas are unlikely to change Beijing’s fundamental thinking with regards to Taiwan.

Firstly, although China cares about international narratives with regards to Taiwan, and puts great pressure on other countries to recognise Beijing’s claims on the island, it does not see the matter as being one of international laws. Beijing views Taiwan as part of its territory and therefore a domestic political matter. “Beijing has not refrained from kinetic or other actions on Taiwan out of deference to international law and norms. It has pursued a strategy of coercion without violence,” said Ryan Hass, a former US diplomat in Beijing and a senior fellow at Brookings.

Shen Dingli, a senior international relations scholar in Shanghai, laid out the official view: “Cross-strait relations are not international relations and are not governed by international law. The United States’ approach to Venezuela holds no relevance for cross-strait relations.”

On the Chinese social media site Weibo, one popular nationalist government affairs commentator wrote: “Stop linking the US actions in Venezuela to the Taiwan issue … Their actions constitute a grave violation of international law and an infringement on Venezuela’s sovereignty, whereas our situation is strictly an internal national affair. There is absolutely no ‘comparability’ in terms of nature, methods or objectives.”

Secondly, the biggest deterrence for China in launching an attack on Taiwan is the military balance in the Taiwan Strait. Although China has a more powerful military, Taiwan has the promise of support from the US in the event of an attack. Last week, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted several days of intense military drills around Taiwan, designed to showcase its ability to blockade the island and fend off international assistance.

The US Department of Defense believes that the PLA is on track to reach its 2027 goal of being able to achieve a “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan, particularly with its rapid advances in military artificial intelligence, biotechnology and hypersonic missiles.

But rather than feel worried by the news in Venezuela, many in Taiwan argued that the successful US military operation may actually give Beijing pause for thought.

Some pointed out that Venezuela’s China-sourced weapons failed to defend against the US attack. Between 2010 and 2020, nearly 90% of China’s arms sales to the Americas went to Venezuela, according to ChinaPower, a research project hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

“Why was the US military able to move in as if no one were there?” said Lin Ying Yu, an associate professor at Tamkang University in Taipei. “Everyone seemed to think that Chinese-made weapons were very impressive after the clashes between Indian and Pakistani air forces,” Lin said, referring to the success of Chinese-made jets used by Pakistan in a brief conflict with India last year. “But now, there seems to be a different interpretation.”

Sung Wen-Ti, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub who is based in Taiwan, said: “The US military’s capacity for a decapitation strike, especially against Venezuela’s largely Chinese defence systems, ought to provide a deterrent that makes Beijing think about putting their [military] to the test against Washington.”

Still, Donald Trump’s flagrant disregard for the international rules-based order, and the speed at which western leaders have toed Washington’s line, reveals the upending of global norms that is under way. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has declined to condemn Trump’s actions, despite the fact that experts have described the attack as illegal under international law. Many European leaders have also equivocated.

China said on Monday that the US’s “blatant use of force against Venezuela seriously violates international law and basic norms in international relations”. China, along with Russia, backed an emergency UN security council meeting over the legality of the operation.

Taiwan’s government declined to comment on the US’s actions, despite the fact that Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, has repeatedly talked of the need to defend the international rules-based order as a means of preventing a Chinese invasion.

One popular Taiwanese blogger argued that in order to prevent itself from becoming “another Venezuela”, Taiwan should avoid causing trouble for the US, such as by becoming a source of drugs or refugees. In a Facebook post that received more than 30,000 likes, the popular YouTuber Chiu Wei-chieh, also known as “Froggy” Chiu, said that unlike in Venezuela, Taiwan’s leader has the popular support of the people. “Taiwan should not become Venezuela. That means clenching our five fingers tighter, uniting, and not becoming easy prey in their eyes,” he wrote.

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu and Lillian Yang