THE FINAL foreign visitors to meet Nicolás Maduro in Caracas—prior to his unscheduled rendezvous with American troops—were senior Chinese diplomats. Just hours before he was snatched from his bedroom, Mr Maduro received a delegation led by Xi Jinping’s special envoy for Latin America. “China and Venezuela! United!” declared the beaming Venezuelan president, extolling the strength of the country’s strategic relationship with China. It is thus not hard to see why China reacted with such shock to Donald Trump’s stunning intervention in Venezuela. Not only did America capture one of China’s closest South American allies, it also exposed the limits of Chinese power.
Some have asked whether America’s actions in Caracas could pave the way for something similar in Taipei. If America has shown that it can scoff at international law and kidnap a foreign leader whom it dislikes, what is stopping China from following its example across the Taiwan strait? But the parallel is far from exact. China’s obstacle is not respect for international law—it views reunification as a purely domestic matter. China’s main concern is whether an invasion of Taiwan would be successful. In that sense the Venezuelan case is not particularly instructive. China would be aiming for much more than the extraction of a single autocrat. Its goal is the wholesale takeover of a vibrant democracy; and Taiwan’s defences are almost certainly stronger than Venezuela’s.