Anxious Alliances? China’s Calculus and American Allies After Venezuela

CSDS POLICY BRIEF • 1/2026

By Carolin Liss and Tongfi Kim

16.1.2026

Key issues

• US operations in Venezuela can have two contradictory effects on China’s policy in its maritime disputes: emboldening or deterrence;
• Overall, the US use of force in Venezuela undermined the credibility of US alliances;
• US allies must resist the normalisation of the use of force and deepen defence and industrial cooperation.

Introduction

On 3 January 2026, United States (US) forces captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and President Donald Trump announced that the US would “run” Venezuela during a transitional period. Maduro’s capture followed months of escalating US pressure, which included attacks on alleged drug smuggling vessels and a maritime blockade targeting oil tankers. The US government then declared that it would control Venezuela’s oil sales indefinitely. These moves signal how far Washington is prepared to go under the banner of “America First”. Many criticise US actions as a violation of international law, but international responses have been mixed due to the nature of Maduro’s regime and many states’ reluctance to upset the Trump administration.

While it remains unclear what the future holds for Venezuela, the operation established a consequential precedent and will likely affect conflicts around the world, including China’s maritime disputes with its neighbours. Some have drawn a parallel with China-Taiwan tensions, but Beijing views Taiwan as an internal issue, making the Venezuela precedent less applicable. The more likely implications may lie in China’s maritime disputes with recognised sovereign neighbours – such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea – where Beijing seeks to expand its influence.

Due to its rising power and more assertive foreign policy, China has been seen by its maritime neighbours as a bully, but it has been a cautious bully. Many scholars argue that China has abandoned the “keeping a low profile” strategy under President Xi Jinping, but Beijing has remained cautious in its use of force. In the disputes in the East and South China Seas – and more recently in the Yellow Sea – China’s growing assertiveness has been characterised by the absence of armed attacks. China has instead made use of various violent and non-violent grey-zone tactics, which stay below the threshold that would trigger a military response by its opponents and their protector, the United States.

There is a stark contrast between, on the one hand, US attacks on alleged drug smuggling vessels (123 killed according to the US Southern Command) and in Venezuela (100 killed according to Venezuela’s interior minister), and, on the other hand, the careful diplomacy observed in China’s maritime disputes. China’s reluctance to use lethal force in its maritime disputes is decades-long. The last case of a Chinese armed attack in its maritime disputes was that against Vietnam in Johnson South Reef in March 1988. It should be noted that Vietnam, unlike the Philippines, is not a military ally of the US, and armed attacks against Vietnam would not activate a US defence obligation. Even then, China reportedly ‘disciplined the head of the Chinese flotilla […] for the use of unauthorized force’.

In disputes involving US allies, China’s use of force is carefully calibrated and shaped by how international treaties are interpreted. On 19 March 2024, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. remarked that the Philippines would have to be facing an “existential threat” to invoke the US-Philippine Mutual Defence Treaty, emphasising the importance of dealing with China in ‘a sober and circumspect manner’. As he further explained, ‘[w]hen you talk about the mutual defense treaty, to invoke that, actual outright violent conflict, then this is a very, very dangerous, very, very slippery road to go down’. After China attacked a Philippine supply ship with water cannons for the second time in March 2024, President Marcos clarified a red line, in consultation with the US government. On 15 April 2024, Marcos stated that ‘[i]f any serviceman, Filipino serviceman is killed by an attack from any foreign power, then that is time to invoke the mutual defense treaty’.

China has no doubt engaged in coercion against its maritime neighbours in recent years, but US actions against Venezuela now risk making Chinese aggression appear trivial. China has rammed ships, shot water cannons and expanded outposts and transformed them to military bases in contested waters, in defiance of international law. On 14 March 2025, therefore, the G7 foreign ministers condemned ‘China’s illicit, provocative, coercive and dangerous actions that seek unilaterally to alter the status quo in such a way as to risk undermining the stability of regions, including through land reclamations, and building of outposts, as well as their use for military purpose’. China, however, has been more restrained in its use of force than the US, and Beijing will criticise the West’s double standards in the coming years. Even more importantly, with a new precedent set by the world’s foremost superpower, Beijing may be tempted to try more violent approaches.

How will the Venezuela precedent influence Chinese strategic calculations?

The US operations in Venezuela can have two contradictory effects on China’s policy: emboldening or deterrence. On the one hand, several factors can embolden Beijing and make China’s policy more aggressive. Chinese leaders are unlikely to pursue the same policy as the Trump administration since Beijing lacks the extensive military alliances or the military capabilities abroad that Washington demonstrated. Chinese leaders, however, would be justified in seeing their grey-zone tactics as less provocative than the Trump administration’s current approach. China can continue to pressure its opponents through grey-zone tactics, and it may gradually dial up the level of violence. The attacks in Venezuela may be read as widening the scope of acceptable measures to secure national interests.

The Trump administration’s disregard of international law has been a big boost for China’s own position on international law in its maritime disputes. Like the US attacks on Venezuela, the US bombing of nuclear sites in Iran in June 2025 was also criticised as a violation of international law. China, unlike the United States, is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but it has rejected the 2016 South China Sea arbitration tribunal ruling, which favoured the Philippines’ claims over those of China. On the 9^th anniversary of the ruling on 12 July 2025, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that ‘[t]he award is nothing but a piece of waste paper. It is non-binding and will not affect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea in any way’. The US government, despite not being a party to UNCLOS, has frequently criticised China based on UNCLOS. This American way of criticising China based on international law will be seen now as even more hypocritical in Beijing. In an interview after Maduro’s capture, President Trump declared that ‘the only thing that can stop’ him is his ‘own morality’, and he does not ‘need international law’.

With the US exercising its dominant position in the Western Hemisphere, China may perceive an opportunity to assert its sphere of influence in Asia. Granted, Washington does not necessarily concede regional hegemony to China in the Indo-Pacific by becoming a more explicit hegemon in the Americas. The “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, however, is about a major power’s sphere of influence in its neighbourhood. As such, China will seek to exploit this development to justify its own preeminent position in its region.

Relatedly, the Trump administration’s claim to Venezuelan oil may further encourage China’s pursuit of natural resources in the South China Sea, by normalising a major power’s resource “nationalism” over its sphere of influence. Resources in the South China Sea have been an important driver for Chinese exploration and expansion, with the approval for the construction of the first Chinese deep-water laboratory in the South China Sea in February 2025 being one recent example. China’s interest in the natural resources of the South China Sea is not only commercially motivated, but is intertwined with its nationalism. Chinese leaders have justified resource exploration in the waters as a means to help ‘ensure […] [their] country’s energy security, advance maritime-power strategy and safeguard […] [their] nation’s maritime sovereignty’.

Furthermore, China may perceive US attacks on Venezuela as a shift of US strategic focus, away from Asia. This would be in line with the US National Security Strategy (NSS), published in December 2025, which prioritised US ‘preeminence in the Western Hemisphere’. At least since the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia, China has been the primary focus of US strategic attention, which Beijing considers to be an attempt to contain the rise of China. Beijing remains Washington’s primary competitor under the second Trump administration, but Washington’s rhetorical (and now behavioural) focus on the Americas leaves less room for competing with China in Asia. China may thus be tempted to intimidate Asian neighbours, who are less certain about US support for them.

On the other hand, the operations in Venezuela may enhance deterrence against China by signalling the US’ willingness to use force. The United States has alliance obligations to defend the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. Such treaty obligations have been repeatedly clarified publicly in the context of China’s maritime disputes as well. For instance, on the occasion of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s visit to the Pentagon in July 2025, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that they ‘remain committed to the mutual defense treaty. And this pact extends to armed attacks on our armed forces, aircraft or public vessels, including our Coast Guard, anywhere in the Pacific, including the South China Sea’. Nevertheless, some have questioned the US’ willingness to fight China on behalf of allies in the disputes. The 2025 National Security Strategy listed Asia as the priority region after the Western Hemisphere, stating the need to prevent a competitor from controlling the South China Sea. In this context, the attacks on Venezuela could be read as a warning to China: Washington is willing to use force when it believes its core interests are at stake. Albeit with different opponents, President Trump, in his second presidency, had repeatedly surprised the world by using force in Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Syria and Nigeria. President Trump’s unpredictability, combined with Washington’s hawkish posture toward Beijing, may strengthen deterrence.

In the context of China’s maritime disputes, there is some indication that China fears President Trump’s unpredictability. For example, in August 2020, a few months before the US presidential election, Beijing reportedly instructed its service personnel to restrain their behaviour in the South China Sea to avoid giving ‘American hawks the opportunity to escalate things further’. Closer to the US presidential election in November 2020, Chinese Communist Party insiders and observers warned that Trump may be tempted to stoke a conflict with China for domestic political gains. Thus, the emboldening effects of the Venezuela incident need to be balanced with the deterrence effects.

The allies should worry

Overall, the allies of the United States have more reasons to worry about their security than before. Crucially, the Trump administration has so far taken a hawkish military stance only toward minor powers, shying away from military confrontation with Russia or China. For South Korea and Japan, it is also concerning that President Trump has been accommodating toward nuclear-armed North Korea since 2018. Thus, the allies are not that confident about the US resolve vis-à-vis the most threatening states. In fact, countries that the president recently threatened with the use of force – Iran, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico – pose no serious military threat to US treaty allies, and Greenland is a territory of a NATO member, Denmark.

To be fair, even before the US capture of Maduro, US allies were already in precarious positions under the second Trump administration. When Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited Washington, DC in July 2025, President Trump reportedly downplayed the South China Sea disputes because he was seeking a summit meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping. Perhaps more worrisome, after his phone call with Xi, Trump in November 2025 reportedly told Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke China over Taiwan. Takaichi had angered China days before by hinting at the possibility of Japan deploying troops to defend Taiwan. Ironically, such a deployment would be conceivable only to assist US operations to defend Taiwan.

The allies’ anxiety is likely to grow in the coming months and years. Washington’s behaviour indicates a lack of respect for international law and a nod to the idea of the world divided into spheres of influence, controlled by major powers. Just as the United States sees the Caribbean Sea as its sphere, China may see the South China Sea as its own, despite the 2016 arbitral ruling in The Hague. Washington is unlikely to concede Asia to China because of the region’s economic and geopolitical significance, but norms underpinning US support for its allies are eroding. Academic research shows that the US public supports military intervention for allies because they fear the reputational costs of non-intervention and perceive moral obligations. When the US government downplays the importance of international law, US alliances become less credible.

Furthermore, the US’ willingness and capabilities to engage with world affairs have limitations. That is always a concern for US allies, who depend on US protection. On top of the material limits, however, Trump is a president who planned ‘to get out of endless wars, to bring […] [US] soldiers back home, to not be policing agents all over the world’. Interventions in the Americas can dry up the limited willingness of the Trump administration to manage international security away from home, leaving distant regions like Europe and Asia less attended to. If Venezuela becomes a quagmire, it will be a quagmire in Washington’s home region, making it even more difficult to withdraw from when compared to the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, the allies would be right to fear that their adversaries are emboldened while Washington is distracted.

Although this policy brief focuses on Asian security, similar alliance concerns apply to Europe. Russia is already fighting in Ukraine to reassert its former sphere of influence, and US support for Ukraine has been dwindling under the second Trump administration. Moreover, President Trump’s policy will likely have divisive effects on Europe. At the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, “Old” and “New” Europe were divided over the US policy, even though the target of the invasion was a dictatorship in a distant region. While Venezuela fits the same category of targets, Europe is currently also facing President Trump’s bid to take control of Greenland and the administration’s support for right-wing parties in European politics. Europe thus not only has to worry about the lack of US intervention in Europe, but also about the international and domestic wedges that Washington drives into Europe.

Conclusion

What happens in Venezuela will affect international relations beyond the Americas. For China, the lesson may be that the use of force is tolerated as long as the aggressor is sufficiently powerful. For US allies, the US actions in Venezuela reinforce fears that they can no longer count on the United States to maintain a rules-based international order. This is not a mere idealistic notion because respect for treaty obligations and concerns about international reputations are central to US military alliances.

To deal with the problems that may emerge from the US attacks on Venezuela, US allies have several difficult but essential tasks. They need to resist the normalisation of the use of force in interstate disputes. A world in which the use of force is limited benefits all, and US allies should support this effort regardless of their regional and institutional affiliations; in this sense, non-US members of NATO have a new reason to strengthen cooperation with the Indo-Pacific allies of the United States. The allies must strengthen diplomatic coordination among themselves, but they also need to pursue this while avoiding the wrath of President Trump. Defence and industrial cooperation among US allies is key to strengthening their bargaining position. Finally, US allies should encourage China’s positive behaviour by emphasising that Beijing now has an opportunity to score soft power gains relative to Washington.

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