Venezuela blockade could put Taiwan at risk: Experts

China could use US action to undercut opposition to similar move in Taiwan Strait

- 

US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a partial blockade on Venezuela marks a dramatic escalation in American pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but it also risks undermining a top US policy goal: deterring a potential Chinese naval encirclement of Taiwan.

Mr Trump on Dec 16 ordered the “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, a move aimed at choking the Maduro government’s main source of income. But the action immediately raised questions under international law about whether it amounts to an act of war.

In the Indo-Pacific, military planners have long feared that China might use a naval blockade to coerce democratically governed Taiwan into accepting Beijing’s rule.

While China considers Taiwan its own territory and would be unlikely to lean on international law to justify military action towards the island, experts say Beijing could exploit a US blockade of Venezuela to undercut any American efforts to drum up international diplomatic opposition to such a move in the Taiwan Strait.

“If the US blockades to change political outcomes in Venezuela, China can justify coercive measures against Taiwan on so-called security grounds,” said Mr Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies in Washington.

“The legal contexts differ, but the propaganda opening is real,” he said, adding that precedent in international relations is set not only by law, but also by narrative.

“When Washington blurs terms, it weakens its ability to call out coercion elsewhere,” he said.