China finds risks, opportunities as Trump pushes for ‘spheres of influence’
Al Jazeera
China will need to reassess its investment in Venezuela and its understanding of US foreign policy under Trump.
Hours before United States special forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last Saturday, Maduro met with China’s special envoy to the Latin American country to reaffirm their nations’ “strategic relationship”.
Now the decades-long relationship is in question, as is the future of billions of dollars of Chinese investment in the country. At the same time, the US has handed China a new opportunity to assert its dominance in its own back yard, including on its claim to self-governing Taiwan, say analysts.
Under the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, recently revived by US President Donald Trump, the Western Hemisphere falls under the US sphere of influence – and the US only.
Trump invoked the doctrine in his latest national security strategy published late last year. Originally intended to keep Europe out of the Western Hemisphere, Trump’s version emphasises the need to counter China’s presence there.
The “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine states the US wants a Western Hemisphere that “remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains” in an oblique reference to China.
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