Lawmakers are clashing over whether U.S. military action in Venezuela could be exploited by China as it weighs its next moves toward Taiwan, underscoring a sharp divide in Congress over comparisons between American force and authoritarian aggression.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-Md., argued that China sees an opening in the making.
"They are looking at this, and they can justify what they're doing because it's the exact same thing that the United States is doing," Meeks said.
Meeks is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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When asked about Meeks' concern, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., agreed that China might look at the moment opportunistically.
"China might try to use any rhetoric anytime, any place. That wouldn't be surprising," Mast said. "It would be par for the course that they do that."
But, in his view, the American effort in Venezuela bears little similarity to the one China has threatened against Taiwan.
"It's apples to oranges," Mast said.
Where Democrats see rhetorical parallels that might invite parallel results, Republicans like Mast see key substantive differences in China's aggressive posture toward Taiwan that separate it from American efforts in Venezuela.
China, led by President Xi Jinping, maintains that Taiwan is not an independent country and that it is instead a portion of China that will one day reunite under the mainland's government. For years, China has conducted military exercises around Taiwan's borders.
Just last week, China fired a series of rockets into the waters surrounding Taiwan as a part of military drills, drawing alarm from U.S. lawmakers.
Clark Summers, professor of international relations at Belmont Abbey College, believes China's view of Taiwan's legitimacy is not unlike the way the U.S. saw Nicolás Maduro's presidency in Venezuela - a regime the U.S. maintains had hung on to power unlawfully.
"At the same time that the U.S. asserts a legal authority to take action with regard to Venezuela, that largely becomes a two-edged sword in that Beijing can assert the same basic right of intervention within its own sphere of influence," Summers said.
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"I think China will claim that anything that will help them build the argument that the use of force is appropriate and just under international law," he said.
Other Republican lawmakers rejected the idea that the U.S. capture of Maduro bears any similarity to the aggression displayed by China and Russia.
Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., the chair of the House Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, framed the U.S.' efforts as a narrowly tailored law enforcement effort.
"[Maduro] is indicted for drug trafficking, causing and moving drugs into the United States, killing hundreds and thousands of American lives," Kim said.
"This was a law enforcement operation, precise, targeted, very successful, very limited. Contrary to that," Kim said.
Mast echoed Kim's thinking.
"We conducted a law enforcement function. It wasn't a function of 'we're taking you out because we don't recognize you as a government.' That's what it would be for China, right?" Mast asked.
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Democrats remain unconvinced.
Meeks argued that the idea that the U.S. should use its superpower status to align its neighbors more closely with its interests reflects thinking more in line with totalitarian governments.
"That fits the same rationale and the reason why Putin says he is going into Ukraine and does not want NATO there," Meeks said.
Rep. George Latimer, D-N.Y., is more concerned that when the U.S. goes to stand up to future aggressors, those countries will use Venezuela to deflect international pressure.
"What's our moral standing when Russia goes into Ukraine, as China may yet go into Taiwan, as any one powerful country after another country? They'll look at us and say, 'What did you do in Venezuela?'"
Lawmakers in the Senate voted on Thursday to advance legislation that would prevent the Trump administration from taking additional military action in Venezuela. It's unclear when it could be taken up by the House of Representatives.
