Dancing with the Communist Party, Venezuela Pays a Heavy Price

Seventy-two hours have elapsed since the devastating earthquake in Venezuela, with reports indicating that over 1,430 people have lost their lives, more than 3,200 have sustained injuries, and nearly 70,000 remain unaccounted for.

[People News] On the evening of June 24, 2026, Venezuela experienced the most destructive disaster since the Chávez era. In a mere 39 seconds, two shallow earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale struck the northern coastal region and the vicinity of the capital, Caracas.

As of June 28, the latest statistics from the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations reveal that this once-in-a-century "double quake" has resulted in at least 1,450 fatalities, over 3,200 injuries, and up to 774 buildings completely collapsed. In the severely affected area of La Guaira, the streets are devastated, and rescue teams are racing against time. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has initially estimated that the direct losses in housing and economic assets amount to $6.7 billion, which is approximately 6% of the country's GDP, while the local power, communication, and medical systems have largely been incapacitated.

1. A Century-Old Earthquake Strikes

Venezuela is engulfed in profound suffering, with losses reaching $6.7 billion (about 6% of the country's GDP), and the local power, communication, and medical systems have largely ground to a halt.

Disaster survivors have widely criticized the government for its lack of heavy machinery and an effective emergency response during the critical rescue period, with initial grassroots rescue efforts relying solely on residents digging with their bare hands. This sudden tectonic rupture has once again pushed this nation, already on the brink of collapse due to rampant inflation and political instability, closer to disaster.

2. Venezuela: The CCP's 'All-Weather Strategic Partner'

When examining Venezuela's national destiny, it is difficult to overlook its close ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which have persisted for over two decades on the international stage. Under the leadership of former President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela was recognized by Beijing as the only 'all-weather strategic partner' in Latin America. The interactions between the two nations represent a 'mutually beneficial relationship of authoritarian regimes.'

Since 2007, the CCP has provided Venezuela with over $62 billion in substantial loans through various financial channels, serving as a financial backbone for the Maduro regime in its efforts to withstand Western economic sanctions. In exchange, Venezuela has committed to exporting a significant portion of its vital resource—oil—directly to China to settle its debts.

Additionally, ZTE has helped the Maduro government develop the 'Fatherland Card' system, which includes tracking and food rationing control features. Meanwhile, Huawei and the China Electronics Import and Export Corporation (CEIEC) have played a significant role in internet censorship and the surveillance of dissenters in Venezuela. The CCP has effectively transferred its advanced digital authoritarian tools to Venezuela.

3. Advancing Beijing's Interests in International Affairs

As a reward for its reliance on the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 'diplomatic umbrella', Nicolás Maduro's regime has leveraged its positions in international organizations like the United Nations and the Human Rights Council to frequently employ strategies of 'proactive attack' or 'collective encirclement'. Acting as a mouthpiece and vanguard for the CCP, Venezuela has helped alleviate international public opinion pressure on Beijing, even taking the initiative to create obstacles for Western adversaries and complicate matters for Western nations on behalf of Beijing.

In 2021, to assist the CCP in mitigating international condemnation over human rights issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, Venezuela spearheaded the formation of the 'Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter'. On the UN stage, it adopted a strategy of 'attacking as a defense', actively accusing the United States of 'systemic racial discrimination' on behalf of Beijing, successfully disrupting and redirecting the focus of international public opinion.

During discussions in the UN Human Rights Council, whenever Western countries questioned China, the Venezuelan representative would always be the first to speak out in 'boycott', vehemently criticizing the proposing countries for 'interfering in internal affairs'. Additionally, Venezuela has actively sought to rally support from developing countries in Latin America and Africa to sign joint statements in favor of China.

Venezuela has long used its influence within the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) to export radical anti-American ideology right at the doorstep of the United States, hindering strategic cooperation between neighboring countries and the free world, and willingly serving as a 'foothold' for the CCP to extend its influence into the Western Hemisphere.

This diplomatic model essentially represents a form of interest exchange: Venezuela serves as the 'political enforcer' and 'megaphone' for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the international stage, in return for Beijing's 'veto power umbrella' in the United Nations Security Council, along with a steady influx of loans totaling hundreds of billions of dollars and support for surveillance technology.

4. The 'Domino Effect' of Complicity in Tyranny

Since its establishment in 1949, the CCP has initiated a series of comprehensive political movements over the decades to solidify its power, reshape social structures, and promote radical ideologies. These movements have disrupted China's traditional social order and led to an extraordinarily large and difficult-to-quantify number of innocent civilian deaths, including executions, deaths from torture, forced suicides, and deaths from policy-induced famines, with estimates suggesting around 80 million innocent lives lost. In addition to the persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners, the CCP's crimes are egregious, and its downfall may not be far off. As the saying goes, 'Those who are close to ink will be stained black'; politicians from various countries who maintain close ties with the CCP are likely to be affected by its misfortunes.

In traditional Eastern culture and universal philosophy, everything in the world operates on a principle of cause and effect, and the fate of a country and its regime is often closely linked to its moral integrity. An ancient saying states: 'When a country is on the brink of collapse, strange omens will surely appear.' When a nation's ruling class chooses to forsake universal values, using the freedom and future of its people as bargaining chips to collude with transnational totalitarian regimes and assist in tyranny, it often plants the seeds of misfortune for the entire nation's destiny.

From the viewpoint of structural political science, the price of 'aiding the tyrant in his cruelty' is the total corruption and fragility of the system. The Venezuelan government, by mimicking the dictatorial regime of the Chinese Communist Party, has channeled its energy and resources into digital surveillance, political patronage, and acting as an international enforcer. This has led to rampant corruption in the country's public infrastructure, with substandard construction projects prevalent throughout.

This explains why, when an earthquake occurs, numerous non-seismic-resistant buildings collapse, and the national emergency response mechanism is effectively non-functional, leaving the lower-class population displaced.

While natural disasters stem from tectonic movements, the devastating 'man-made disasters' they produce are the inevitable results of an authoritarian regime's collusion, disregard for people's livelihoods, and willingness to act as pawns for the malevolent Chinese Communist Party. The continuous disasters facing Venezuela today serve as a cautionary mirror for all nations that are 'pro-CCP and pursue authoritarian paths': those who engage with tyranny will ultimately pay the steepest price within the fragile system that tyranny creates.

(First published by People News)
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