Chinese Caracas Party: With Maduro Gone, CCP Eyes Continued Dominance over Venezuela’s Oil
Venezuela is not just a failed state waiting to be rescued—it is a battlefield where power is exercised quietly, patiently, and often invisibly. While headlines focus on the removal of Nicolás Maduro, the real struggle is over who controls what comes next: the oil, the infrastructure, the debt, and the political machinery beneath the surface. Regimes can fall overnight, but foreign influence does not. In Venezuela, China has spent years embedding itself deep enough to survive any leadership change, raising an uncomfortable question: who actually runs a country after the strongman is gone?
Walter Herbst brings a rare and formidable perspective to the unfolding story in Venezuela—one forged not in theory, but on the ground. Long before Venezuela became a geopolitical flashpoint, Herbst worked there as an engineer for a major oil company, giving him firsthand exposure to the country’s political culture, economic vulnerabilities, and foreign influence. He understands Latin American politics at a granular level, and he has seen how great powers quietly move in when institutions weaken.
Herbst warns that while the removal of Nicolás Maduro may appear to be a decisive blow to authoritarianism in the region, Americans should not assume it weakens China’s grip on Venezuela. “Not so fast,” he says. In Herbst’s view, there is a critical difference between removing a figurehead and dismantling the systems that allow external powers—especially China’s Communist Party—to dominate a country from within. China, he explains, does not need overt political control to win; it needs leverage. Through financing, infrastructure projects, energy partnerships, and long-term debt arrangements, Beijing has mastered the art of crowding out competitors while appearing indispensable.
During his time in Venezuela, Herbst witnessed China’s “quiet takeover” strategy in action: undercutting Western firms, locking in supply chains, and embedding itself so deeply into key sectors that disentanglement becomes politically and economically painful. He argues that the same playbook is likely to persist even after Maduro, unless the United States and its allies are prepared to do the harder work of rebuilding institutions, enforcing transparency, and preventing predatory economic arrangements.
Herbst also brings deep historical context to these warnings. As an expert on Cuba and the Cold War, he has written extensively on why a second U.S. invasion of Cuba never occurred—demonstrating how misreading power dynamics can lead to long-term strategic failure. He sees clear parallels today in Venezuela: symbolic victories without structural reform risk handing the country back to authoritarian influence under a different banner.
For media outlets seeking insight beyond headlines, Walter Herbst offers a sober, experience-driven warning: removing Maduro may be necessary, but without a strategy to counter China’s embedded influence, it will not be sufficient.
Relevant Article(s):
Optional Q&A:
- Is the removal of Maduro enough to loosen China’s grip on Venezuela, or does it simply change the optics?
- How did China quietly corner Venezuela’s energy and infrastructure sectors while the world was distracted?
- What did you personally witness in Venezuela that most analysts in Washington missed?
- Why is there a critical difference between toppling a regime and dismantling the systems that sustain foreign control?
- How does China’s playbook in Venezuela compare to what it did in Cuba and other Cold War theaters?
- What mistakes is the U.S. at risk of repeating if it assumes Maduro’s exit equals strategic victory?
- How deeply embedded is the CCP in Venezuela’s post-Maduro economic future?
- What would a serious strategy look like to prevent China from doing “CCP things” in Venezuela again?
ABOUT WALTER HERBST…
Beyond historical scholarship, Herbst brings firsthand professional experience as an engineer with a major oil company, including time working in Venezuela. That experience gives him a rare, ground-level understanding of the country’s political economy, energy sector, and institutional decay. He has closely observed how authoritarian regimes exploit resource wealth—and how China strategically leverages financing, infrastructure, and market control to entrench its influence in Venezuela. This dual background in geopolitics and energy economics allows Herbst to connect historical power struggles with today’s global energy and strategic conflicts.
Author Walter Herbst brings more than four decades of intensive, independent research to uncovering the forces behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the broader geopolitical currents of the twentieth century.
His work examines the rise of the radical right, the Cold War power struggle, and America’s long effort to contain global communism. Herbst has written three books on the Kennedy assassination, including It Did Not Start With JFK – The Decades of Events That Led to the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Volumes 1 and 2, and Last Resort Beyond Last Resort – The JFK Assassination, the Need to Protect West Berlin, and Why a Second Invasion of Cuba Never Happened, which explores the Cold War motivations behind the murder of the president.
TO SCHEDULE AN INTERVIEW, CALL OR TEXT 512-966-0983 OR EMAIL BOOKINGS@SPECIALGUESTS.COM
