Albanese wants a ‘stable’ relationship with China. This expert thinks he’s smoking dope

Divided America comes together on precious few points, and one of them is that the Chinese Communist Party needs to be confronted. So it’s striking that China has consolidated its grip on the American hemisphere in recent days with barely a word uttered in US public debate.

“Beijing and its axis has made considerable gains against the free world over the last four years,” says Matt Pottinger, a China expert and deputy national security adviser in the Trump White House.

Matt Pottinger was a senior national security official under the Trump administration.Credit: Bloomberg

“And we now have just in the last couple of weeks a stolen election in Venezuela, in America’s front porch, where Beijing, Iran and Russia are the primary supporters – diplomatically, materially in terms of security apparatus support – of this dictator,” he tells me.

While Pottinger is aghast at what’s happening in the Caribbean, the US political and media class, consumed by the presidential election, hasn’t paid much heed.

China’s gains in Venezuela violate the spirit of America’s Monroe Doctrine of 1823 that declared the Western Hemisphere to be off limits to other great powers.

Illustration: Dionne Gain

China years ago chose Venezuela, economically stricken yet oil rich, as its beachhead in Latin America. Xi Jinping has embraced Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro accordingly. So when Maduro blatantly defrauded his way to an election “victory” two weeks ago, how did Xi react?

The leaders of the region’s major democracies questioned the result. Chile’s President Gabriel Boric said that “Maduro’s regime must understand that the results are hard to believe”. Argentina’s President Javier Milei said “not even [Maduro] believes the electoral scam he is celebrating.” The leaders of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico called on Maduro to release detailed local ballot tallies while offering to mediate the disputed result.

The US dismissed the election as a fraud and, according to the Wall Street Journal, is prepared to give Maduro amnesty over outstanding US indictments if he surrenders power. But why would he? He has Xi Jinping on his side. In offering his congratulations, Xi whitewashed the fact Venezuela’s economy has collapsed by some 80 per cent over the last decade under Maduro, driving more than seven million citizens out of the country in a quest for food, work and hope.

“President Maduro has led the Venezuelan government and people,” said Xi, “making remarkable achievements in the cause of national development.”

China’s President Xi Jinping with Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro back in 2014. Credit: Jorge Silva

China would “firmly support Venezuela’s efforts to safeguard sovereignty, national dignity and social stability, and its just cause of opposing external interference”. The last clause, of course, is a reference to resisting the US.

With an estimated $US60 billion in Chinese investment in the country, Xi is protecting his turf even though it’s in America’s traditional sphere of influence. At its closest point, Venezuela is roughly 800 kilometres from the US territory of Puerto Rico.

But it’s about much more than money. “Venezuela is important to the full range of China’s ambitions in the Americas,” says Evan Ellis, professor of Latin American studies at the US Army War College. “Including access to resources, markets in strategic sectors, political strategic objectives, and military options if it ever must fight a war with the US in the Indo-Pacific.”

Maduro’s forces have locked up at least 1300 protesters since the election and killed 24, according to rights group Foro Penal, and they continue a crackdown Maduro calls Operacion Tun Tun – operation knock knock – an unsubtle reference to the black-clad security goons who knock on people’s front doors at night to seize suspected dissidents.

In return for Beijing’s support, Maduro’s regime cheerleads Xi’s political projects, including his crackdown on Hong Kong’s liberties and his territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.

As China continues to extend its programs of global reach across Asia, the Pacific islands, Eurasia, Africa, Latin America, the Arctic and even Antarctica, Pottinger says the US and all democracies need to be alert to Beijing’s active exploitation of chaos wherever it occurs.

“Policymakers in Australia and the US [need to] remain clear eyed about what Beijing’s true ambitions are, and about the profound lack of sincerity in any offers by Beijing to, quote unquote, stabilise the relationship.”

This is a direct challenge to the Albanese government’s stated aim of “stabilising” the Australian relationship with China.

America is distracted, to say the least. Credit: nna\riwood

Although he was a senior official in the Trump administration and is mooted to be so again should Trump win, Pottinger is respected widely as an expert on China, where he worked as a journalist for seven years. He’s currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a business partner with the Australian former journalist John Garnaut in the advisory firm they co-founded, Garnaut Global.

He argues that Xi’s policy in Latin America “is working to destabilise Latin America through things like shoring up a dictator. That policy means that you’re going to see millions more refugees walking out of Venezuela and into places like Colombia and all the way up into the US, you’re going to see more money laundering and drug trafficking,” says Pottinger.

“You’re going to see Beijing, Moscow and Tehran strengthen their foothold in America’s front yard. Beijing’s goal in supporting Vladimir Putin and his attacks on Ukraine was to destabilise and fragment Europe, not about stabilisation.

“Beijing’s support for Iran, as it was preparing its proxies to wage war in Israel, is about destabilising free countries, and in trying to discredit and undermine American power. Everywhere you look, Beijing’s goal is to foment chaos beyond its borders.”

He cites a Xi speech from 2021 that revived a Mao Zedong slogan: “The world is in great chaos, situation excellent!” Says Pottinger: “I mean, you have it straight from the horse’s mouth. So anyone who’s sort of entertained this idea of stable ties with Beijing is really smoking dope.”

Pottinger says that the democratic world has big advantages. For instance, the US and its allies have combined GDP double that of the combined economic heft of China and Russia. But the allies’ power is “latent”, he says, and it’s time to activate that power to “impose costs” on China and Russia.

When the US election is over, we’ll see exactly how a divided America comes together to confront China. America’s eventual policy could be Australia’s asset. Or Australia’s liability.

Peter Hartcher is international editor and political editor.