China is deeply sensitive to regime change narratives. For decades, Beijing has made active diplomatic efforts to prevent externally imposed leadership transitions, viewing them as threats not just to international stability but also to the legitimacy of its own system.

This is why China supported Bashar al-Assad throughout the Syrian civil war, backed Russia’s framing of Ukraine, and consistently used its U.N. Security Council veto to block interventions justified on humanitarian or democratic grounds. For Beijing, the principle is existential: If great powers can remove governments that they deem illegitimate, then no government is safe—including its own.

China is deeply sensitive to regime change narratives. For decades, Beijing has made active diplomatic efforts to prevent externally imposed leadership transitions, viewing them as threats not just to international stability but also to the legitimacy of its own system.

This is why China supported Bashar al-Assad throughout the Syrian civil war, backed Russia’s framing of Ukraine, and consistently used its U.N. Security Council veto to block interventions justified on humanitarian or democratic grounds. For Beijing, the principle is existential: If great powers can remove governments that they deem illegitimate, then no government is safe—including its own.

Chinese officials may see the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela on Jan. 3 as further evidence that the United States is willing to advance regime change as policy—a threat that some in Trump’s administration have previously made about China’s ruling party itself. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken openly about the Chinese Communist Party as a “potent and dangerous near-peer adversary.”

But there’s one government that China is keenly interested in supplanting itself: Taipei. Some observers are drawing parallels between U.S. operations in Venezuela and the potential for conflict over Taiwan. The implications cut in multiple directions, and Beijing will parse each one carefully.

Venezuela may signal U.S. willingness to use force in the event of an escalation over Taiwan. China could view the strike as evidence that U.S. defense commitments are credible—paradoxically reinforcing deterrence. Chinese strategists often

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