From Caracas to Tehran, could Beijing be the strategic objective?

Following the brazen January raid that captured Nicolás Maduro and the subsequent US-Israeli strikes that decapitated the Iranian leadership, the traditional map of global trade now stands incinerated. 

Beneath the usual rhetoric of regime changes, there may be another motive behind such drastic interventions — one that is targeted at Beijing. Are these interventions also part of a broader strategy to constrain China by limiting its access to energy resources?

Infograph: TBS

China is the world's largest crude oil importer, consuming roughly 15 million barrels per day (bpd) and importing over 10 million bpd in recent years. Approximately 70–75% of its crude is imported. 

A substantial portion comes from geopolitically sensitive suppliers, including Iran and Venezuela — both heavily sanctioned by Washington. The structural alignment is difficult to ignore.

The pattern suggests that US pressure on Tehran and Caracas has had the collateral and, most certainly, intended effect of constraining Beijing's long-term energy security. Whether that constitutes the primary motive is debatable, but the strategic overlap is unmistakable. 

Sanctions, oil and strategic denial

China was the primary buyer of sanctioned Iranian crude, particularly after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018. While official Iranian export figures collapsed on paper under sanctions, maritime tracking data show that Iranian crude shipments to China rebounded steadily through opaque channels. 

By 2022–2023, Iranian crude exports were estimated at 1–1.3 million bpd, with the overwhelming majority — often more than 80–90% — destined for Chinese refiners, particularly independent "teapot" refineries in Shandong province.

This effectively makes China the anchor customer sustaining Iran's sanctioned oil economy. Even at discounted rates — often $10–15 below Brent — this translates into tens of billions of dollars annually in revenue flows that cushion Tehran against maximum pressure. 

In strategic terms, Iranian crude serves two Chinese objectives simultaneously: diversification away from Gulf monarchies aligned with Washington and access to discounted supply that lowers import costs.

The Venezuelan case is structurally similar but quantitatively smaller. 

Following the reimposition of US sanctions in 2019, Venezuelan oil exports plummeted from over 2 million bpd earlier in the decade to below 700,000 bpd at their trough. Yet data shows that China continued to receive Venezuelan crude, often relabeled or routed through intermediaries. In certain periods, China accounted for 50–70% of Venezuela's remaining exports, particularly heavy sour grade oil suited to complex Chinese refineries.

Although Venezuelan volumes are modest compared to Middle Eastern flows, they serve a strategic hedge function. Venezuela possesses the world's largest proven oil reserves — over 300 billion barrels — and Chinese state entities have historically extended more than $50 billion in loans-for-oil arrangements to Caracas. Even when flows dip, the structural relationship remains embedded in long-term financing and infrastructure ties.

Combined, Iranian and Venezuelan crude do not constitute the majority of China's total oil imports. China imports roughly 10–11 million bpd overall, with Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq as larger suppliers. However, sanctioned barrels from Iran and Venezuela represent something more strategically sensitive: politically insulated supply outside US leverage structures.

This matters because energy security is central to China's growth model. Industrial expansion, military modernisation and Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects all depend on stable hydrocarbon flows. Strategic vulnerability in oil supply has long haunted Chinese planners, particularly given US naval dominance in maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca.

Sanctions on Iran and Venezuela do not eliminate Chinese access. But they increase friction by raising costs, limiting scale, and reducing predictability.

"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing," Frank Herbert wrote in his seminal novel 'Dune'. It perfectly frames the US strategy in 2026. Washington may very well be thinking that it does not need to own Iranian or Venezuelan oil; it only needs the power to destroy the supply chain to control China's future.

If China were able to secure long-term, sanction-free supply contracts from Tehran and Caracas, its energy diversification would expand substantially. Instead, Beijing relies more heavily on Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE — partners that remain strategically tied to the US security umbrella. This structural dependence gives Washington indirect leverage.

In Iran's case, its apparent nuclear power remains the overt justification. Tehran's uranium enrichment activities and regional proxy network create tangible security concerns. Yet Iran is also a pivotal energy node.

Before sanctions, Iran ranked among the world's top oil exporters and possessed the second-largest natural gas reserves globally. A reintegrated Iran could supply both Asia and Europe at scale.

China signed a 25-year comprehensive cooperation agreement with Tehran in 2021, signalling long-term strategic intent. Energy cooperation was central to that framework. US pressure constrains the operationalisation of such agreements.

However, it would be analytically incomplete to reduce US policy solely to energy containment. Iran's ballistic missile programme, support for armed groups across the Middle East, and nuclear advancements represent independent drivers of US hostility. 

The more accurate framing may be dual-purpose policy: counter-proliferation and regional deterrence objectives align conveniently with broader strategic competition against China.

Venezuela presents a more overt case of energy geopolitics intersecting with great-power competition. The country's economic collapse predated peak US sanctions, but sanctions accelerated production decline and financial isolation.

China had become Caracas' largest creditor, receiving oil shipments as repayment. US sanctions disrupted these arrangements, complicating Beijing's energy diversification strategy in the Western Hemisphere.

Moreover, Venezuela's geographic location adds another dimension. A Chinese foothold in Latin America's largest oil reserves carries symbolic and strategic weight in Washington's traditional sphere of influence.

Intervention rhetoric around Venezuela has consistently referenced democratic backsliding under Nicolás Maduro. Yet the energy dimension is inseparable. Crude oil remains Venezuela's central strategic asset. If stabilised and reintegrated without US leverage, Caracas could deepen its alignment with Beijing, and Washington may have wanted to prevent that. 

Are energy motives primary?

Disrupting supply chains in Tehran or Caracas does not collapse China's economy. But it introduces inefficiencies and limits Beijing's capacity to hedge against geopolitical shocks. This incremental strategy mirrors Cold War containment logic: deny adversaries access to strategic resources and geopolitical footholds. However, this approach carries risks.

First, sanctions once drove Iran and Venezuela closer to China and Russia, accelerating alternative financial mechanisms and non-dollar trade settlements. Efforts to bypass SWIFT and conduct energy transactions in yuan reflect this trend.

Second, prolonged instability in energy-producing states can backfire. Reduced global supply contributes to price volatility — raising costs for Western consumers as well.

Third, excessive coercion risks overextension. Regime change efforts have historically produced unintended consequences, as seen in Iraq and Libya.

The critical question remains whether energy containment of China is the primary impetus or a strategic by-product.

Evidence suggests it is unlikely to be singularly primary. US policy toward Iran predates China's rise as a global energy superpower. Hostility toward the Islamic Republic has roots in the 1979 revolution, hostage crisis and decades of regional conflict. Similarly, Venezuela's deterioration stems from domestic governance failures compounded by sanctions, not solely from its alignment with Beijing.

Yet the timing of intensified sanctions and rhetorical framing within a broader US-China strategic rivalry strengthens the argument that energy geopolitics now shapes decision-making calculus. The US is pursuing a similar carrot-and-stick approach in Africa and South East Asia as well. 

Fueling a new cold war?

If containment logic deepens, interventions in energy-rich states aligned with Beijing may increasingly be interpreted through a Cold War prism.

The US does not need to directly blockade Chinese oil imports to exert pressure. Constraining the capacity of supplier states, discouraging long-term Chinese investment and maintaining leverage over maritime chokepoints may suffice.

China, in response, accelerates diversification — investing in renewable energy, pipeline routes through Central Asia, and maritime expansion under the Belt and Road Initiative. This dynamic — strategic denial met with strategic hedging — resembles Cold War competition in structure, if not ideology.

US interventions in Iran and Venezuela cannot be reduced to a single explanatory variable. Nuclear proliferation, regional instability, democratic backsliding and domestic political pressures all play roles. Yet the energy dimension — particularly as it intersects with China's growth trajectory — is too significant to dismiss.

By constraining two major hydrocarbon producers aligned with Beijing, Washington indirectly complicates China's energy security calculations. Whether deliberate grand strategy or structural by-product, the effect is real.

As the US-China rivalry intensifies, energy will remain a central theatre of competition — not through overt embargoes, but through sanctions, financial controls and geopolitical pressure points. The question is not whether energy geopolitics fuels the emerging Cold War. It already does. The more consequential question is whether such strategies contain China's rise — or simply accelerate the formation of rival economic blocs.

History suggests containment can slow adversaries. It can also harden them.

In the contest between Washington and Beijing, oil flows through Tehran and Caracas may prove as strategically consequential as tariffs or technology bans. And unlike trade wars, energy rivalries rarely remain confined to economics. 

"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing," Frank Herbert wrote in his seminal novel 'Dune'. It perfectly frames the US strategy in 2026. Washington may very well be thinking that it does not need to own Iranian or Venezuelan oil; it only needs the power to destroy the supply chain to control China's future. 

Shadique Mahbub Islam is a journalist.