The world is being reshaped into zones of influence with the agreement of the US, Russia and China. While this may sound like a conspiracy theory or a social media meme, the reality is that Donald Trump must have realized that he does not need another Yalta conference or any formal event to establish the zones of influence. The US has been the sole hegemon after the fall of the USSR, but China has grown immensely over the last decades and its international influence and chokehold on critical resources, namely rare earth elements (REE), perceived as the prerequisite of the expected AI boom (compared in importance to the implementation of the Internet or the Industrial Revolution), is now undeniable. Additionally, the growing assertiveness of India, the expanding European Union and the unexpectedly well-functioning Russia, which after four years of war and severe sanctions, has found ways to thrive, indicate that the sole concentration of power in North America would eventually be challenged. A proactive transactional approach where each side gets something is worth more than any legal agreement.

Silence/Inaction Of Russian Personnel In Venezuela

A few hours after the news of the operation were flooding the world media, Russia and China condemned the capture of the head of the sovereign country of Venezuela. In reality, however, they did nothing more and are not likely to do anything more. Later in the day, Reuters announced that, according to four sources, Venezuelan Vice President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez, was in Russia. This begs the question – how was she able to reach a destination 10,000 km away, flying under the radar of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier strike group, which has made the Caribbean practically impenetrable, but able to let go off the first person who would assume power based on the line of succession in Venezuela?

Additionally, Russian operatives have been in Venezuela helping the Nicolas Maduro government over the last few years. On 23 November 2025 the Head of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence (HUR), Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, announced that Col. Gen. Oleg Leontievich Makarevich was commanding the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Equator Task Force (ETF) in Venezuela, which included more than 120 personnel training Venezuelan forces across multiple military disciplines. In view of the military buildup, which the US had initiated, he added: “I think they will be behind the scenes and officially Russia will try to speak to the US because their units are in Venezuela, it’s just a game.”

In his Mar-a-Lago conference on 3 January 2025 following the Maduro seizure, Trump said that many Cubans perished defending the Maduro security, but did not mention anything about Russians. Furthermore, surprising the Russians in this situation with their access to resources within HUMINT, SIGINT, GEOINT and MASINT would be highly unlikely. Their personnel must have been warned beforehand.

Why would they be silent? The fruitless negotiations over the last months for the defense of Ukraine can give a hint. Even though Ukraine is a lucrative defense market, Venezuela with its potential resources and location could be far more valuable to the US strategy and security. It is yet to be seen in the following year if the hypothesis that Ukraine was traded is true.

China And The Tradeoff Over Taiwan?

China’s position is more subtle. Venezuela exports nearly 80% of its oil to China, but the share of Venezuelan oil imports for China is between 0.5% and 1% and it is nowhere near the top 15 oil suppliers for China. In their attempt to choke the struggling Venezuelan economy, the US restricted tanker movements to and from Venezuela. The US-Chinese relations were escalated on 22 December 2025 when the US seized tankers off the Venezuelan coast and China openly accused the US of violating international law as declared by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian on a regular press briefing in Beijing. “The US practice of arbitrarily seizing other countries’ vessels seriously violates international law,” Lin said. China, he added, opposed actions that “infringe upon other countries’ sovereignty and security” and opposed “all acts of unilateralism and bullying”. 

Nothing much followed later. Onto more recent events, reports surfaced that a Chinese tanker turned around just hours before the operation and rerouted to Angola. How could a commercial vessel get info to change route so drastically?

The question is, what did Beijing get for its inactivity? Did the US negotiate a Hong Kong scenario for Taiwan, where US influence would gradually dissipate against guarantees to keep the economic and political systems for a specified period (as in the 50 years in the Hong Kong handover)? Taiwan is a 400 km by 120 km island, which is 170 km away from mainland China through rough seas most of the year with windows of calmer weather March-April and October. An all-out assault of the required magnitude would be a logistical nightmare and various war games / simulations conducted over the last 3-4 years reached similar conclusions – that if the PLA is able to take over the island, it would be through a pyrrhic win, which would itself put a big question about China’s entire stability.

The numerous exercises, which the PLA has been conducting around Taiwan with increased frequency since the Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te’s inauguration in May 2024 have been blockade operations. The likely purposes would be observing reaction time and methods, political and psychological pressure, disruption of supply chains, including disruption of semiconductor supply chains, thus affecting world markets. However, China’s approval on the island is between 10% and 13% and Taiwan is more important to China and the US as a functioning entity.

Taking over Taiwan would be the equivalent of killing the hen that lays golden eggs. The country is fundamental in the production of semiconductors and both the US and China are dependent on them as production of that magnitude cannot be substituted overnight. The supply chains are very complex and involve Taiwanese, Japanese, European and American companies. Recent reports showed that in 2024 about 38% of the revenues of companies like Nvidia are to Chinese government backed companies. Considering Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company and with USD 4.6 trillion market cap has a weight of 7.43% of the entire S&P500 index, a ban to limit sales to China in an effort to limit their access to top technology would jeopardize not only the company, but the entire market as well. Trump knows that a good performing stock market is one of the most important supporting factors for his presidency; hence the decision to allow the sale of the advanced H200 chips to China in early December 2025.

Engineering dependencies within the US stock market is a very powerful move by China and supports China’s announced strategy to challenge the world order far better than simply taking over the island. The US stock market is open to investors across the world as this supports greater demand and its growth. The Chinese stock market is not as open and is ca. 20% of the value of the US market. However, it is 62.7% of its GDP with over 5,300 companies, whereas the US stock market is 213% of its GDP with over 4,000 companies indicating the upside potential by China. Once the Chinese market grows sufficiently, decreases barriers of entry, implements sufficient regulatory control to guarantee fairness and offers similar liquidity to the US, institutional investors in the US will start shifting. The selloffs will have a far greater impact on the perception of the dollar as a reserve currency than any international agreement for oil trade excluding it. Beijing knows that taking over Taiwan with a softer approach in the next years might offer greater benefits. A few years is also the time, which Trump is envisioning would be enough to decrease semiconductor dependency by building the Intel mega factory in Ohio.

As such, for Washington, giving up assets in the mid-term, such as Ukraine and Taiwan, could give them the green light for Venezuela, with its immense and unexplored oil reserves, and Greenland, with its REE reserves, for which they are almost entirely dependent on China.

It is clear that in those 'virtual' negotiations, the participating sides were the US, Russia and China. The EU, including Denmark, the country whose territory Greenland is, was not. India neither. The old rule that if you are not part of the negotiations, you are likely a subject to the decisions, holds true. Possible future steps would include annexation of Greenland, as indicated by Trump on multiple occasions, including also in interviews after the Venezuela takeover. This would achieve another objective – to weaken the EU further, as no EU state will likely challenge the US if the annexation happens.

Importance Of Regional Influence

Laws are irrelevant when there is no enforcing mechanism. International law under the UN Charter has become a pretext to justify actions post factum and when the actions are not covered by the articles in the UN Charter, the explanation is that strategic objectives require those actions. The responses, in their majority, are verbal – such ranging from “observance” (such as most EU members) to condemnation. It is extremely rare that an action is taken and in the case of the US, any action would be practically unthinkable as each country has its own objectives, thus the question of establishing “justice and respect”, as indicated in the UN Charter Preamble, becomes secondary.

In such an environment, international law and its principles become wishful thinking. This is the reason why growing countries like India must ensure they are strong enough to control their territories and cannot rely on international support in case foreign claims occur.

Importance Of Soft-Power Approach

“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” – Art of War, Sun Tzu.

About 2,500 years later, the importance of positive narrative holds true. As indicated in the last two elections in Venezuela, at least 50% of the population were against Maduro and supporting closer ties with the US. Such effect would be impossible without the soft-power approach and is a great factor for the success of the operation to oust him. The approach becomes more effective when the population struggles and hard to implement when the state functions well, offering enough opportunities for good living standards.

With regard to India, the creation of a positive narrative and inculcating patriotism is fundamental for the greater resistance in border areas, such as the vulnerable Northeast, Kashmir and Ladakh, which are plagued by foreign influence. Considering the strategic importance of these regions, their populations should even be pampered with opportunities that they see in India, which would be a small price to pay to guarantee the wellbeing of the powerhouse that the Indian economy can potentially become. The guaranteed stability and the created market could push India further like no other policy.

 (The author is a strategic affairs and geopolitics analyst. He holds master’s degrees in economics from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, and MBA from Cass Business School, London. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at ivo.valchev@gmail.com )

References:

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-vice-president-rodriguez-russia-four-sources-say-2026-01-03/

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/market-capitalization

https://www.aberdeenplc.com/en-gb/news-and-insights/china-vs-the-us-and-why-stocks-are-not-the-economy

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/64803

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/08/tech/nvidia-h200-chips-china-trump-export

https://www.slickcharts.com/sp500

https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/china-taiwan-special-report-december-31-2025/

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/imports-by-country,imports-by-country

https://www.worldstopexports.com/top-15-crude-oil-suppliers-to-china/