Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro announced a trip to Beijing “soon” this week to “hug our brother Xi Jinping,” that nation’s tyrant.
Most governments in the world, including China and Venezuela, are currently discouraging hugs as a violation of “social distancing,” a policy in which people keep from physical proximity to avoid the spread of the Chinese coronavirus. China is the origin of the current pandemic, while Venezuela has documented a steady growth in the number of cases. Scientists around the world have expressed distrust towards both China’s and Venezuela’s official coronavirus case numbers.
Maduro made the comment on state television Wednesday, one of his first remarks this week not regarding the alleged failed “coup” attempt against him claimed by the head of an American private contractor. Maduro has vowed to take President Donald Trump and the government of Colombia to The Hague for his involvement in the operation, though no evidence exists indicating any such involvement and the alleged head of the operation, Jordan Goudreau, lamented to the Associated Press that Washington has completely ignored him. Some reports have tied Goudreau to a former chavista general whose brother continues to represent the Maduro regime in Iran.
“I will soon go to Beijing to give a hug to our brother Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in China,” Maduro announced, according to Venezuelan state television. He reportedly did not offer any specific dates or clarity on how he would be allowed to enter China given its current stringent travel limitations. He also did not explain how hugging someone after taking one of the world’s longest international flights complies with social distancing measures both Maduro and Xi have implemented in their respective countries.
VTV, the Venezuelan state propaganda network, noted that China and the illegitimate Maduro regime have signed deals for over 700 currently ongoing projects, largely economic ones and that Maduro has visited China ten times.
Maduro last paid a state visit to Beijing in late 2018, in one of the regime’s most difficult circumstances. The visit resulted in China agreeing to lend Maduro $5 billion in financial relief after several years of careful distancing, the first major loan in years after Beijing began expressing mild discontent with Maduro’s inability to pay it back.
China has also invested deeply in the Maduro’s regime’s repressive apparatus. As it has done throughout Latin America, China has lent Venezuela its surveillance technology to create a Maduro equivalent of the “social credit system,” which assigns every Chinese citizen a point value based on their loyalty to the Communist Party.
“They are single-handedly helping conduct the Internet control operation,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) explained last year. “They have basically taken a commercial version of their great Internet firewall and given it to Maduro, and it is a service they are providing him, so they are the ones that are shutting down the Internet and access to social media.”
China has received in return significant profits from suspect government projects it has spearheaded in the country. One of the most egregious examples, revealed by Reuters last year, was the deal cut with the Chinese company CAMC, which allegedly promised to build “rice paddies twice the size of Manhattan” to ease the socialism-created hunger in the country. Reuters found that the rice paddies never materialized, CAMC made at least $1.4 billion, and “locals are hungry.”
Maduro and Xi last spoke in mid-April, according to the Chinese state newspaper Global Times. In that conversation, Xi reportedly told Maduro he was “ready to boost cooperation with Venezuela in COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] prevention and control and continue to help the Latin American country combat the coronavirus disease.”
More recently, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed its support for Maduro’s legitimacy, despite the fact that his presidential term ended in January 2019, and condemned the alleged failed “coup” against him this week.
“According to international law and basic norms governing international relations, a country’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters on Wednesday. “China firmly supports the efforts of the Venezuelan government to safeguard sovereignty, maintain stability and improve people’s livelihood, opposes any external interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs under any pretext and firmly rejects any form of military intervention.”
The Maduro regime, at press time, claims to have confirmed 381 cases of Chinese coronavirus and ten deaths, a significantly lower number than some of its free neighbors. Maduro initially attempted to impose a “voluntary” lockdown on the country in March. Due to widespread shortages of food, gasoline, and water, among other basic items, many ignored the lockdown to gather in large lines outside of essential businesses. Maduro then continued to call the lockdown “voluntary” but began enforcing it, leading to protests and violence. Some have continued to gather in crowds, arguing that it is impossible for them not to get on lines for food or water.