The Venezuelan president, who has been on a trip to China since September 8, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, September 12, to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. As rapprochement with the United States slowly progresses, Caracas is seeking to strengthen its ties with its Chinese ally to reactivate its economy. The Latin American country has lost 80% of its GDP over the past decade.
First change: September 13, 2023 – 01:03
4 mins
This is the first visit since 2018. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro landed in Beijing on Tuesday, September 12th. Although his timetable has not yet been released, it is expected that he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. crucial meeting for the South American country, The country has been mired in an economic crisis for several years and is trying to move forward by strengthening its ties with China.
On September 8th, Nicolás Maduro, who has already been to China five times, began a long visit planned until Thursday, September 14th. The Venezuelan president first arrived in Shenzhen, a metropolis in the south of the country near Hong Kong and the heart of China’s high-tech industry. He then went to Shanghai, where he met with Dilma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil and director of the New Development Bank of the BRICS, the world’s emerging economies. The Venezuelan president, who is looking for new sources of financing for his country, stressed that the financial institution in Venezuela has “a partner, an ally, a friend.”
We met with Lin Wu, secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee. We learned about the development experiences of this sister city, which we will add in addition to the Venezuelan project of expanding the productive forces. We will increase the… pic.twitter.com/d0elymYXOR
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) September 11, 2023
Oil, a basic commodity to attract Chinese interest
The visit continued with a tour of the Shandong region, another important industrial center in China. Before you take the train to Beijing, Nicolás Maduro praised the bilateral relations between his country and China in a message broadcast on Venezuelan television: “We are in Shandong as part of our historic visit to China. The bilateral relationship model between governments and peoples is being strengthened and is moving towards a great future. Cooperation and brotherhood are the way.”
An opinion that the Chinese partner also shares. “Thanks to the personal commitment of President Xi Jinping and President Maduro, China-Venezuela relations have withstood the test of the changing international landscape and remained rock solid in recent years,” Chinese diplomacy spokesman Mao Ning said last week added that China “stands ready to work with Venezuela to draw up a plan for expanding bilateral relations.”
Among other interesting topics, Nicolás Maduro is trying to reactivate the Venezuelan economy by increasing oil exports to China. While the Bolivarian Republic has the largest conventional oil reserves in the world, China, for its part, is the world’s largest importer of black gold, an essential resource to sustain its industrial model. It is also the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude oil.
We met with Lin Wu, secretary of the CPC Shandong Provincial Committee. We learned about the development experiences of this sister city, which we will add in addition to the Venezuelan project of expanding the productive forces. We will increase the… pic.twitter.com/d0elymYXOR
— Nicolás Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) September 11, 2023
As evidence of the importance of the issue for both countries, Nicolás Maduro highlighted “the oil, gas, industrial and agricultural potential” after a meeting on Monday, leading to stronger relations between the oil states of Anzoátegui and Monagas in Venezuela and the Shandong region It would be led by Lin Wu, secretary of the region’s Communist Party.
Looking for financing
Another important issue discussed with President Xi Jinping is Venezuela’s debt. Experts estimate the country’s foreign debt at $120,000 to $200,000 million, but the authorities did not provide official figures. China is the Chavista regime’s largest creditor, but shut off the credit tap in 2018, saying the economic and political situation in Venezuela had deteriorated. According to the Inter-American Dialogue analytical center, Caracas has received around $60,000 in government loans from Beijing since 2007.
At the beginning of his visit, in an interview with the Chinese broadcaster Xinhua, Nicolás Maduro did not hesitate to praise China while indirectly criticizing the United States. He said China had ushered in “a new era of emergence of non-colonial, non-imperialist, non-hegemonic superpowers.”
GDP fell by 80% in ten years
For Venezuela, strengthening economic cooperation with China appears to be even more important as the country has seen little progress in its relations with the United States. In November 2022, US authorities granted oil major Chevron permits to reactivate its oil production in Venezuela, but restoring productive infrastructure damaged by several years of inactivity will take time.
The United States still does not recognize the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro’s government after the 2018 presidential election, considering it fraudulent. Since 2019, the embargo imposed by the North American country on Venezuelan crude oil has hit hard the North American country’s economy, particularly dependent on crude oil sales. Venezuela’s production fell from three million barrels in the late 2000s to about 750,000 in recent months.
People look at the black smoke from the massive fire in a fuel tank at an oil refinery plant of the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui state, Venezuela, on September 19, 2022. (Photo by Carlos Landaeta / AFP) © CARLOS LANDAETA / CARLOS LANDAETA
Lost oil revenue Venezuela has plunged the country into a critical economic situation, with a GDP that has shrunk by 80% in the last decade. Today, Venezuela faces the highest inflation rate in the world, which reached 436% in May of this year, despite the dollarization of the economy accepted by the Chavista regime to ensure greater economic stability.
Economic problems that people suffer in their daily lives. According to the living conditions survey conducted by the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), in 2022, 53.8% of the population was affected by extreme poverty.
With AFP, EFE and local media