Venezuela has become a charity basket case. It’s economy has collapsed, its currency is worthless and political institutions are hanging on by the threat of force alone. It has squandered the value of its oil resources through the corruption and mismanagement of the socialist Chavez/Maduro regime, and anyone who floats Venezuela a loan has to be prepared to never see the money again.
That puts China in an interesting position. China has a geopolitical interest in seeing a socialist state survive in the Western Hemisphere, but Venezuela is very much a double-edged sword for the Chinese communist. It may be a strategic pain in the neck for the United States, but it’s a bigger pain in the neck for its own people and the fellow leftist regimes trying to continually prop it up so Venezuela can survive in spite of itself.
