Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.
The highlights this week: China reacts to the U.S. attack on VenezuelaChinese President Xi Jinping delivers a New Year’s Eve addressand China announces new export restrictions amid its standoff with Japan.
China Reacts to U.S. Strike on Venezuela
Last Friday, hours before he was seized by U.S. forces, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro met with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy to Latin America. While Qiu Xiaoqi’s visit was not unusualits proximity to the U.S. attack may put Xi on edge.
According to Venezuela, the visit reaffirmed the “unbreakable nature of the brotherhood” between the two countries. In 2023, China upgraded its relationship with Venezuela to an “all-weather” partnership, a distinction typically reserved for allies such as Pakistan.
However warm China-Venezuela relations may be, Beijing’s initial reaction to the U.S. attack was limited and predictable. The Chinese foreign ministry issued a brief statement condemning the United States for “hegemonic acts” that violated international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.
Moving forward, it is likely that China will make a lot of noise—particularly over the illegality of Maduro’s capture—but offer little practical intervention on Venezuela’s behalf. Though the U.S. attack provides hard-liners in Beijing with justification for severing ties with Washington, such a break is doubtful.
Xi has invested considerable effort in stabilizing China’s bilateral relationship with the United States, including the trade cease-fire negotiated with U.S. President Donald Trump last year—on terms largely favorable to Beijing. Given China’s precarious economic positionit more likely will continue to hedge its bets rather than inflame tensions.
In the last year, China has consistently condemned U.S. sanctions and seizures of Venezuelan tankers, even as Beijing has gradually reduced direct assistance to Caracas, focusing instead on securing repayment of existing debts.
This approach could change if the Trump administration attempts to cast Maduro as a scapegoat for the United States’ fentanyl problems during his trial and wraps in China. Interestingly, the U.S. indictment against Maduro unsealed on Saturday makes no mention of fentanyl, focusing instead on cocaine trafficking.
Another area to watch is oil. On Saturday, Trump attempted to make an overture to Beijing by suggesting that under U.S. control, Venezuelan oil exports to China would grow. However, this supply matters little to China: Though it purchases roughly 68 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports, that is a negligible share of overall Chinese oil imports.
What may prove more influential in shaping China’s involvement is its long-standing ideological commitment to anti-imperialism in the developing world, rooted in ties forged with socialist-leaning states in Latin America and Africa during Mao Zedong’s rule. Venezuela, however, only entered China’s orbit after former President Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998.
Nevertheless, the overtly imperial character of the latest U.S. military operation could resonate with Xi’s generation, which was raised on the narratives of anti-colonial struggle and Third World solidarity. To be sure, China is often hypocritical, patronizing, and even racist toward its supposed socialist siblings. Yet the belief system persists, particularly among older Chinese leaders.
However, it’s unlikely that the U.S. attack on Venezuela will alter China’s strategy on Taiwan. China’s leadership sees Taiwan as an internal issue and has no trouble reconciling its support for Venezuelan sovereignty with its contempt for Taiwan’s.
The crisis in Venezuela may spur deeper Chinese engagement across Latin America. One development to watch will be Chinese air-defense sales to countries such as Cuba and Colombia, which are unsettled by Trump’s increasingly expansive threats.
What We’re Following
New Year’s Eve address. China traditionally marks a new year with the Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 17 this year. Though major policy documents typically follow that event, Xi’s Western New Year’s Eve speech has taken on outsized importance.
The speeches themselves are always banal, despite extensive mandatory coverage by Chinese state media. Xi typically lists his achievements of the last year, often highlighting the places he’s visited. His comments on Taiwan always garner attentionbut they don’t waver: He asserts that reunification is inevitable—the same language Beijing has used for decades.
This year’s speech followed the same pattern as previous ones, highlighting China’s technology innovations and cultural soft-power successes in 2025, including the Black Myth: Wukong video game and the blockbuster movie Ne Zha 2.
Japan tensions. The standoff between Tokyo and Beijing continues over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s repeated remarks that Japan could aid Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is attempting to garner South Korean support by invoking Seoul’s historical grievances with Tokyo, but this is unlikely to gain traction.
China has so far avoided the kind of street-level mobilization seen in past confrontations, opting instead for quieter measures such as banning Japanese artists, discouraging tourismand issuing diplomatic protests. On Tuesday, China announced a ban on exports of certain dual-use goods, including some rare earthsto Japan.
Meanwhile, a senior Japanese official seemed to call for an independent nuclear arsenal last month, prompting Tokyo to reaffirm its no-nuclear-weapons pledge. As neither side shows any sign of backing down, the rift appears at risk of becoming something more permanent.
FP’s Most Read This Week
Tech and Business
Restaurant woes. Chinese spending on dining out fell sharply in recent months, reflecting yet another sign of the country’s economic malaise. Restaurants have been closing at record rates since the COVID-19 pandemic, and spending per meal has fallen by 24 percent since 2023. Young people, financially strapped and often unemployedhave especially cut back.
Eating out in China is far cheaper and more routine than in the West, with small, often family-run restaurants on nearly every street. Some of the sector’s contraction reflects the rise of delivery platformswhich exploit cheap labor. Facing weak domestic demand, Chinese restaurant chains are attempting overseas expansion in search of growth.
Tax crackdown. China has been collecting more taxes from online vendors since October, when a new law closed long-standing tax loopholes that helped fuel China’s e-commerce boom. China’s tax system is often poorly coordinated between local and central authorities, and digital transactions have proved especially difficult to trace.
But it wasn’t just legitimate taxes that many online sellers were evading. Operating online also made new businesses harder for officials to detect, limiting opportunities for routine extortion. In contrast, more visible enterprises, such as restaurants, typically have to bribe multiple agencies—from health inspectors to the fire department—just to operate.
By formalizing tax collection, the central government has created a new dilemma: Once local officials know what businesses are operating in their jurisdictions, these businesses become targets for extortion, expanding the potential scope of corruption.