“He’s completely alone.” Why do China and Russia seem to have abandoned Maduro?

Despite sporadic rhetorical statements of support, in the current geopolitical context Venezuela is no longer important to Beijing and Moscow — who have “other priorities”.

When the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavezwho came to power in 1999, formed strategic alliances with China and Russia to promote his vision of a multipolar world and combat the influence of the United States.

These relationships were decisive in 2019when Chávez’s successor, the current Venezuelan president Nicolas Madurofaced a serious crisis of legitimacy after this year’s elections, marked by fraud accusations.

At the time, the two powers rejected the international recognition of the then opposition leader, Juan Guaidówhich declared interim president of the country. Beijing and Moscow even provided military and economic support to Maduro.

Six years later, Nicolás Maduro faces a new crisis — the most serious in more than 12 years of government. But China and Russia have shown no desire to support him, in addition to generic appeals for calm and non-interference.

Everything indicates that, this time, Maduro is alone faced with what he denounced as a attempt to overthrow him — despite the fact that, according to , this Monday Russia expressed its “full support” for Venezuela.

Since September, the government of the US president Donald Trump mobilized around 15 thousand soldiers and more than 20% of combat capacity of the United States Navy to the Caribbean region, off the Venezuelan coast.

This mobilization, the largest and most sophisticated in the world. Trump declared that the objective is to combat drug traffickingbut analysts agree with Maduro and argue that, probably, its true purpose is drive regime change in Venezuela.

Limited support for rhetoric

Fernando Reyes Mattadirector of the Center for China Studies at Andrés Bello University, in Chile, considers that Nicolás Maduro faces a critical situation.

“You have little time left“, said Reyes Matta to . “The support he has benefited from in the past are no longer available in real termsexcept for a few rhetorical statements.”

At the end of October, Maduro asked Russia and China for assistance to improve its military capabilities, as initially reported by .

The North American newspaper obtained internal US government documentswhich indicate that Venezuela specifically asked Moscow for help to repair Russian-made Sukhoi fighter planes, improve radar detection systems and supply missiles.

Asked whether Moscow was providing assistance to Caracas, shortly after the report was published, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskovhe limited himself to saying that his country maintained constant contact with Venezuelarefusing to provide further details.

Also Maria Zakharovaspokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated at a press conference his “firm support for the authorities Venezuelans in defense of national sovereignty”.

“Direct aggression will worsen the situationinstead of resolving problems that, potentially, can be fully resolved through legal and diplomatic means, within the legal framework”, he highlighted.

On the 7th, the Russian agency Tass reported that the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Ryabkovstated that the country remains “shoulder to shoulder” with Venezuela. “We expressed our solidarity with Venezuela, with whom we signed an strategic partnership and cooperation agreement”.

“We support Venezuela, just as it supports usin many sectors. In these difficult times, we stand in solidarity with Venezuelan leaders. We hope that the Trump administration will refrain from escalating the situation and escalating it into a full-scale conflict. We ask you to act in this way”, detailed the Russian agency.

But these reactions are far from what was seen in 2018when Russia sent to Venezuela more than 100 pilots and military personnelin addition to two bomber aircraft with nuclear capabilities.

This was at the time a show of strength and support against the United States, which had just reject the results favorable to Maduroreleased by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela, controlled by people close to the president.

Other priorities

Reyes Matta, who was Chile’s ambassador to China during the first government of former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010), maintains that Venezuela is no longer important for Beijing and Moscow in the current geopolitical context, even more so after Trump’s return to the White House.

“Today, there are no reasons to defend Venezuelaneither for Russia nor for China, taking into account your other problemssuch as Russia’s war in Ukraine and China trying to manage coexistence with President Trump on the international stage”, he explains.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia channeled enormous resources financial and military resources for a war that has drained your finances and its armed forces, in addition to triggering a wave of Western sanctions.

All this translates into less availability of money and weapons for ideological allies who have probably lost relevance in the plans of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia will not risk new sanctionsnot even China will risk suffering more import tariffs for defending Maduro”, the director of the Politics and International Relations Laboratory (PoInt) at Icesi University, in Cali, Colombia, told the BBC. Vladimir Rouvinski.

As relations between the United States and China have been marked by trade tensions since Donald Trump assumed the presidency and announced import tariffs on several countries.

The situation seemed complicatedbut a meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea at the end of October was described as positive by both leaders, opening the door to possible agreements.

The United States reduced the 20% rate by half on Chinese products, in exchange for controlling the flow of fentanyl. But tariffs on other Chinese goods were maintained, reaching, on average, around 50%.

For Beijing, defending Maduro would likely mean putting these advances at risk, sin great benefits beyond ideological ones.

China reassesses its support for Maduro

Official documents obtained by The Washington Post indicate that Maduro also sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinpingcalling for “greater military cooperation” to face “the escalation between the United States and Venezuela”.

In the letter, Maduro asked the Chinese government to accelerate the production of radar detection systems by Chinese companies, probably so that Venezuela expand your military capabilities.

For many years, the Chinese loans to Venezuela were essential for investment and development of the country’s economy. Between the years 2000 and 2016, Venezuela was the main destination of Chinese loans in Latin America. Caracas received in this period between 50 and 60 billion of dollars.

These loans represented more than 40% of the total comes from China to Latin America, transforming Venezuela into a central element for the expansion of Chinese influence on the continent.

But the country’s economic collapse and the deterioration of its oil industry led Beijing to reevaluate the level of support that he wants to offer to Maduro. In recent years, China has reduced the granting of new financing. Now, the country cfocuses mainly on ensuring reimbursement of loans already granted.

Rouvinski calculates that China does not want to harm, from the outset, the relations it may have with a future transitional government. “I believe that China is willing to negotiate with any government that he replaces Maduro and considers that excessively supporting the current president could have negative consequences with the fall of the regime”, he argues.

‘Maduro is completely alone’

Fernando Reyes Matta considers that thepolitical events events in Venezuela last year also influenced Moscow and Beijing’s change in stance towards Caracas.

“I do not believe that either country is willing to support a regime with so little internal support. Both Russia and China know that the latest presidential elections in Venezuela had very obvious signs of fraud”, he emphasizes.

Last year’s July elections were marked by serious accusations of fraud. The government-controlled National Electoral Council proclaimed Maduro’s victory, but did not present evidence or detailed voting dataas had happened in previous processes.

Added to this is the fact that the opposition, led by Maria Corina Machadomwhich, having published electoral records that would indicate the victory of opposition candidate Edmundo González.

“This time, Maduro is completely alone“, says Vladimir Rouvinski. “Perhaps Russia and China will continue to criticize the North American intervention, but are not willing to go beyond that”.

The reaction of the two countries shows that Maduro’s government can no longer count with the absolute support of the two powers, which played an important role in previous crises.

This time, the permanence of Maduro and his circle will probably depend more on the his own resilience — and Donald Trump’s persistence to continue the campaign against the Venezuelan government.