Venezuela Doesn’t Make a Chinese Intervention in Taiwan More Likely—Here’s Why

Following the United States’ dramatic intervention in Venezuela, which led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores to face prosecution in the United States, there has been considerable concern about what these developments might portend. Not only is the future of Venezuela itself in doubt, but there is also concern about the potential for similar interventions elsewhere, such as Greenland.

One case that could be similar is Taiwan, where tensions between the United States and Venezuela have sparked a debate about whether China will attempt something similar in the future. Beijing has long sought to gain control over Taiwan, and regularly carries out military exercises that simulate a blockade or invasion of the island. Following the People’s Libertation Army’s (PLA) recent “Justice Mission 2025,” analysts warned that the Chinese exercises around Taiwan could have been simulating blockade maneuvers in support of a “decapitation strike” or invasion. Subsequent events in Venezuela sparked similar concerns outside the expert community. Days after news broke that the U.S. military had successfully carried out the operation in Caracas, Hsu Szu-chien, Taiwan’s vice defense minister, reassured the public that Taiwan’s government has prepared contingency plans for evacuating the president.

The concerns are understandable. But it would be hasty to draw parallels between Taiwan and Venezuela, because the United States has long served as an effective deterrent in the case of Taiwan, and will likely continue to do so. Any resort to force by the Chinese Communist Party would be considered a unilateral change to the status quo, and could very well trigger U.S. intervention.

The capture of Maduro and Flores involved a remarkably complex operation that left practically no margin for error. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained in an interview with CBS:

It is not easy to land helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in the country. The guy lived on a military base. Land within three minutes, kick down his door, grab him, put him in handcuffs, read him his rights, put him in a helicopter and leave the country without losing any American or any American assets—that’s not an easy mission.

As challenging as this operation was, the United States’ control of the Caribbean was virtually uncontested. No other great power had forward-deployed assets that could intervene in Venezuela’s defense, meaning that the situation Venezuela faced on the eve of the attack was dramatically different from the Taiwan context.

Since 1979, when the Taiwan Relations Act was passed, it has been enshrined in U.S. law that the United States will “maintain the capacity” to defend Taiwan. Pursuant to that law, the United States has long maintained a network of naval forces and overseas bases to give the president the option to exercise that capacity should he or she choose to do so.

Venezuela on the eve of Trump’s intervention could only be compared to a Taiwan that had been completely abandoned by the United States and U.S. allies and partners. That is such a remote possibility that any comparison between Venezuela and Taiwan is speculation, if not indeed fantasy.

Despite the recent changes in U.S. foreign policy under the second Trump administration, what the National Security Strategy (NSS) identifies as the single most important factor behind the U.S. interest in Taiwan’s security is the most enduring factor of all: geography. The NSS states that “there is, rightly, much focus on Taiwan, partly because of Taiwan’s dominance of semiconductor production, but mostly because Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters.” Because of its critical geographic position, Taiwan will continue to be important to the United States, meaning that any comparison between Taiwan and Venezuela will continue to be fundamentally flawed.

Other analysts cautioning against drawing parallels between Taiwan and Venezuela have pointed to China’s strategy, which is based on shaping long-term trends in Beijing’s favor, as well as the substantially greater tactical challenges involved in attempting to carry out this kind of operation in Taiwan. Taiwan has advanced radar systems in place, each of which can monitor around 1,000 aircraft at a range of over 200 nautical miles, and any PLA extraction force attempting to land in Taipei would be quickly intercepted by Taiwan’s Air Force.

Analyses focusing on China’s long-term strategy and tactical challenges are sound, but the single most important factor that makes an invasion of Taiwan unlikely is arguably the role of the United States. While the government of Taiwan is certainly right to have contingency plans in place for evacuating the president, the greatest deterrent against China attempting its own version of the United States’ “Operation Absolute Resolve” is the United States itself. According to the Pentagon, the U.S. intervention in Venezuela “involved more than 150 military aircraft from all across the Western Hemisphere launching in close coordination to provide cover for the ground-based extraction force in Caracas.” That kind of deployment attempting to enter Taiwan’s airspace would lead to Taiwan engaging its anti-air defense systems, and would be detected by the United States as well as U.S. allies and partners in the region.

With U.S. (and possibly allied) intervention in Taiwan’s defense, the People’s Republic of China would be faced with an intractable dilemma: either back down, accepting a humiliating defeat that could involve hundreds of PLA aircraft being shot down over the Taiwan Strait; or accept unpredictable and possibly uncontrollable escalation dynamics. It would be impossible for Taiwan, the United States, and U.S. allies and partners to know if a coordinated air operation by the PLA Air Force was intended to carry out a limited operation or was intended to be the opening salvo in a wider conflict. Beijing’s adversaries would have to prepare for—and probably assume—the worst-case scenario. It goes without saying that Taiwan would do its utmost to prevent the PLA extraction force from succeeding in carrying out its mission on the ground, but it is also worth noting that Taiwan (and possibly the United States) would be simultaneously seeking to prevent further waves of PLA aircraft from crossing the Taiwan Strait. This suggests that Beijing would not attempt to carry out this kind of operation unless it was already prepared for a wider war.

James Lee is an assistant research fellow/professor at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and an affiliated researcher at IGCC.

Thumbnail credit: Winston Chen (Unsplash)