Comment by kledru
5 days ago
Not only the region... A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures. Also, here we have another permanent member of UN Security Council making decisions to intervene without consulting the UN or even their own constitutional bodies...
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Especially when no nation wants to touch this (e.g., Starmer being very quick to say that the UK wasn’t involved, etc.), it only reinforces that any power willing or able to make a bold move like this will likely not face much opposition (also see Russia in Ukraine).
The most prominent case for such a future would be china moving against Taiwan, which now got easier with two of the 3 big world powers making their move.
Taiwan is a different story. There are quite detailed war simulations built for defending the country. I guess you might mean that russia is one of the “3 big world” powers and their move is the special operations to capture kiev. I stop here
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What frustrates me is the justification I hear for this from those opposed to the kidnapping of Maduro, an illegitimate president.
Somehow it's not ok for the USA to violently meddle in the internal affairs of another country, but it is for the PRC because... Taiwan is nearby? Because the people speak the same language? Because the ghosts of the CPC's past are here on the island? It's frustrating.
Taiwan is stronger than Venezuela.
China is much weaker than the Golden Empire.
> A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
No need for LLMs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_regime_...
Can't rule out Leopold's Congo scenario, as the first comments do not look good:
* resource extraction focus
* dismissal of local leadership (Machado "does not have the following or respect" -- Nobel hurting?)
* no transition plan to self-governance (perhaps it is early)
* military occupation ("not afraid of boots on the ground", "military will protect oil operations")
These things happened today subsequent to Venezuela:
North Korea ‘has fired ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/north-korea-ha...
UK and France carry out strikes against Isis target in Syria https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/uk-france-s...
It's not just encouraging, it's almost making it a necessity. Putting aside one's respect for law may be a matter of responsibility when your competitors are gaining advantage by not playing by the rules.
The UN permanent security council members are (or were meant to be) precisely the countries that are so powerful they can choose to invade you and nobody can stop them. The hope was that by letting them veto you, they'll veto you instead of invading you.
Don't think that's true of Britain and France these days...
Britain for sure, but France's military is explicitly build up as an expeditionary force.
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Xi Jinping is probably sending thank you cards to Trump right about now.
Indeed. If I'm Xi, I'm invading Taiwan tomorrow. Russia invading Ukraine, USA decapitating Venezuela....there's not even a pretense that international law matters any more.
It's also clear that Trump only respects power, which China clearly has. He already backed off tariffs with the critical minerals threat. Unlikely he'd come to Taiwan's aid in my opinion.
With political polarization in America, you can bet all kinds of fingers would start pointing at Trump in America, saying he enabled it by meddling with Venezuela. Stock market collapse from TSMC blockade would enhance this even moreso. I wouldn't count on much, if any, rallying around the flag effect.
I’m skeptical any of this is true.
How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
Trump does only respect power, as do all other serious leaders. Power is all that matters in the end.
How do you think the system of international law came into existence? It was imposed by the US at the end of WWII because of their overwhelming military strength and the fact that no other nation had nuclear weapons at the time.
The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
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An invasion of Taiwan is incredibly risky for China and will be guaranteed to be very expensive.
Just guessing but a long term strategy from Xi could be to wait and show that he is different and gain simpathy.
Except this was already going to happen and everybody has known for years.
Xi made a new years address just a few days ago essentially saying China would reunite Taiwan.
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Very apt username for the occasion.
Taiwan's President should definitely be worried.
I guess they are, because china was (or still is) practicing blocking of Taiwan. And Trump made somewhat a commitment to Taiwan, but who knows if there won't be a better deal with china tomorrow?
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why? Xi already made his intention with Taiwan clear many years ago. Besides, Xi, while pretending to be neutral, has become the major backer of Putin's war effort. It's not like Trump is doing anything special.
That's the point of being a permanent member of UN Security Council -- it's a position of power, not of subordination.