{"id":226,"date":"2026-01-06T20:51:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=226"},"modified":"2026-01-06T20:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T20:51:50","slug":"how-the-donroe-doctrine-reinforces-xis-vision-of-power-in-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socializenews.com\/?p=226","title":{"rendered":"How the \u2018Donroe Doctrine\u2019 Reinforces Xi\u2019s Vision of Power in Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Just hours before American commandos seized President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela in a daring raid, a senior Chinese official had met the Venezuelan leader at the presidential palace, a show of support for one of Beijing\u2019s closest partners in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The speed with which U.S. forces acted afterward to capture Mr. Maduro sent a blunt message to Beijing about the limits of its influence in a region that Washington treats as its own. China now risks losing ground in Venezuela after Saturday\u2019s assault in Caracas, despite decades of investment and billions of dollars in loans.<\/p>\n

But the assault also reinforces a broader logic that ultimately favors President Xi Jinping\u2019s vision of China and its status in Asia: when powerful countries impose their will close to home, others tend to step back.<\/p>\n

The White House has framed the Maduro operation as part of an updated\u00a0Monroe Doctrine, or as President Trump describes it, the \u201cDonroe Doctrine.\u201d A globe carved into spheres of influence \u2014 with the United States dominating the Western Hemisphere and China asserting primacy across the Asia-Pacific \u2014 and where might makes right, regardless of shared rules, could benefit Beijing in a number of ways.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Stephen Miller, a top aide to Mr. Trump,\u00a0articulated this doctrine\u00a0in an interview with the CNN host Jake Tapper on Monday. \u201cWe live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A U.S. airstrike in Catia La Mar, a coastal area west of Caracas and near the airport, hit a three-story apartment complex.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It could keep the United States and the brunt of its military forces away from Asia. And it could undercut Washington\u2019s criticism of Beijing when Chinese forces elbow their way across contested waters of the South China Sea and menace Taiwan, the island democracy China claims as its own.<\/p>\n

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The assault on Caracas \u201cdoes further erode the norms against great power use of force that have steadily weakened in the last two decades, which works just fine for Beijing,\u201d said Rush Doshi, a China expert at Georgetown University and the Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cMore important, if it distracts the United States by tying us up in Venezuela, all the better for Beijing too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Beijing has long railed against what it calls America\u2019s strategy of containing China, which includes stationing troops in Japan and South Korea, and deploying U.S. naval ships in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. And it has criticized Washington\u2019s moves to deepen security ties with India and help Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Xi has depicted China as a reliable and powerful pillar in the region, in contrast to the United States, as he sought to court neighbors to his side in a trade war with President Trump.<\/p>\n

In a speech at a high-level Communist Party conference on regional diplomacy, Mr. Xi called for the region to be governed by \u201cAsian values,\u201d Asian supply chains and an Asian security model where countries shared \u201cweal and woe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea, left, taking a selfie with Mr. Xi and their wives during a visit to China on Monday.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Yonhap, via Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Monday, Mr. Xi once again appeared to underscore the contrast between the Trump administration\u2019s assault and China\u2019s \u201cneighborhood diplomacy\u201d in a meeting with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea in Beijing. Mr. Xi, casting China as a benevolent major power, said Beijing and Seoul were able to achieve \u201charmony without uniformity\u201d by \u201cresolving differences through dialogue and consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, China has not hesitated to use its massive economic power for coercion and its ample modern military to intimidate its neighbors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Just last week, China fired more than two dozen long-range rockets into waters around Taiwan and surrounded the island with bombers, fighter jets and warships in a\u00a0two-day show of force\u00a0aimed at intimidating the island\u2019s leadership. China has also punished Japan economically for showing support for Taiwan.<\/p>\n

None of this means Beijing is calibrating its approach to Taiwan based on events in Venezuela. Chinese leaders have long treated the island as a domestic issue to be resolved on their own terms, independent of U.S. actions elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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China has sometimes been explicit about how it sees its power in its own neighborhood. At a meeting with Southeast Asian officials in 2010 over the South China Sea, China\u2019s then-foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said: \u201cChina is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that\u2019s just a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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China fired rockets last week from Pingtan, an island in the eastern Chinese province of Fujian, close to Taiwan, as part of two days of exercises aimed at pressuring Taiwan.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Adek Berry\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That blunt view of power helps explain both China\u2019s confidence in Asia and its vulnerability farther afield, as Venezuela has made clear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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China will not easily give up on Latin America, a region where Beijing has been expanding its economic and political influence for years, buying soybeans and minerals and investing in ports, telecommunications networks and space infrastructure. It has aligned itself with Brazil, Colombia and, of course, Venezuela, in being willing to stand up to Washington\u2019s bullying.<\/p>\n

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Led by socialist strongmen who dared to defy the United States, Venezuela shared an ideological kinship with China\u2019s communist leaders. The South American nation has been the region\u2019s largest recipient of Chinese loans and the largest buyer of Chinese military equipment. In 2023, Beijing elevated bilateral relations with Caracas to one of its highest tiers, known as an \u201call-weather strategic partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s stake in the country, which includes around $10 billion in outstanding loans, could now be at the mercy of the Trump administration, which\u00a0indicated on Sunday\u00a0that it would assert leverage on Venezuela\u2019s leadership by imposing a military \u201cquarantine\u201d on the country\u2019s oil exports.<\/p>\n

For Beijing, the timing of Saturday\u2019s strike only compounded the blow. China\u2019s special envoy for Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, had met with Mr. Maduro in Caracas at Miraflores, the presidential palace, earlier in the day on Friday, their meeting shown on local broadcasts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Qiu Xiaoqi, China\u2019s special envoy for Latin American affairs, meeting with President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela on Friday, in a photo released by the Venezuelan government. They met hours before American commandos seized Mr. Maduro in a raid.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Marcelo Garcia\/Miraflores Palace, via Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe United States took such action at a time when China\u2019s delegation was visiting Venezuela. For China, it is very embarrassing,\u201d said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. He said that the attack would affect relations between Washington and Beijing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That it took place during the Chinese delegation\u2019s visit also pointed to a potential failure of China\u2019s intelligence services and its diplomats, said\u00a0Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n

Beijing has condemned the U.S. strike and said that it was \u201cdeeply shocked\u201d by the \u201cblatant use of force.\u201d In what appeared to be his first remarks on the matter, Mr. Xi on Monday criticized what he called \u201cunilateral bullying actions\u201d that he said were \u201cseverely undermining the international order.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is unclear how much contact Beijing has had with Caracas since Mr. Maduro was deposed. Even as the two administrations remained close, China had grown frustrated by corruption and the mismanagement of the country\u2019s resources by the Maduro government, which came to power in 2013, analysts say. As billions of dollars in unpaid loans racked up, China effectively stopped lending to Caracas more than eight years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela is a headache now for China, but it\u2019s a headache worth having,\u201d said Ryan C. Berg, director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. \u201cBeijing saw Maduro as a complete clown, but in many ways, he was their clown as long as he remained in power.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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