Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the “world’s judge” after the United States captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
The world’s second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.
Almost half of China’s purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.
So what if they do a little authoritarianism? They are attempting to make goddamn fusions reactors, for fucks sake
It’s important to point out balancing factors when discussing the accomplishments of any entity or state.
China is doing amazing things and will likely dominate the coming century, but that doesn’t mean we should look at them like heroes or champions, and we need to hold our leaders accountable for wrongs.
It’s possible they will get better as they take on more of a global role in the absence of the US hegemony that will likely start to crumble over the next several decades. I hope they give their people more rights and become leaders of world stability, but part of why they’re escaping the destabilizing forces that are crushing democratic countries is precisely because they have such an oppressive stranglehold on their own culture. It’s a complex situation.
whoosh