I genuinely, sincerely wish you are correct.
Chinese intellect is unrivalled; of that, I am certain. We came out of a time when the vast majority of Chinese scientists would choose to go to the US than stay in China. That was the darkest time and made people wonder if the US truly could not be beaten. But we walked out from that into a nation that is already technologically superior to the US in many, if not most critical fields. I have nothing but confidence.
I do hope US suffers disproportionately large blowback on its reputation for this and absolutely fails to make much if anything of the whole effort and it stops at meddling in Panama and this bizarre move on Venezuela.
It's best to be prepared for the worst though. Chinese leaders ought to be considering the worst and making plans and taking action. China showed us the military window isn't only closed, it's gone above the US in every single way except numbers of some platforms and numbers of nukes. Trade China wins, tech China wins. American is trying hard by scaling its reach back, preserving influence they have and hunkering down in its region and bullying/ forcefully taking over its neighbours. It's gone way past using financial crimes to harvest the world, it's openly taking over 18th and 19th century style. I would prefer the world give it a find out and place costs on doing these things but the demon is hard to slay.
The US won't suffer significant blowback. The US retreating into its own sphere and hunkering down there because China gave it a bloody nose with the rare earths and now looks impervious is good, but realistically, Venezuela would be in America's sphere.
When I saw the news this morning, I knew there would be overreaction on this thread because China couldn't save Maduro.
At the earliest, China needed to become a nation that the US could not invade; that was questionable until Mao won and America did not dare to militarily support the KMT.
Then was phase 2; during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, China showed that it could protect its bordering countries with its army, despite its air force and navy lagging seriously behind the US. These wars further cemented that the US did not dare invade China even when at war as MacArthur was fired by Eisenhower for wanting to do this.
Phase 3 is domination of Asia over air and water; there is no hot war yet to prove it but it is widely believed that China's current air force, navy and artillery mean that in Asia, with geographical advantages, the US would be defeated by China in China's backyard.
We are currently moving to phase 4, where we are building the most sophisticated aircraft carriers, destroyers, drone fighters and 6th gen fighters so that we can win over the US in fair conventional fight like over the pacific and take US outposts like Guam and Hawaii in times of war.
Phase 5, if we get there, is total Chinese global domination. If the US acts ancy with Cuba or some other country in its backyard, China sends our navy to shut them down. Maduro needed us to be here, but we are just wrapping up phase 3 entering phase 4.
All we have to do is keep developing faster than the US and these phases will all fall in place. Perhaps the most comforting is that seeing China progress, the US has not chosen a competitive path by appealing to global talent and focusing on STEM education of its own population but it has chosen a path of rage, essentially letting the most angry and uneducated people run the country for emotional gratitude. Perhaps that is the greatest weakness of democracy.
