When Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1999, he forged strategic alliances with China and Russia to promote his own vision of a multipolar world and counter the influence of the United States.
These relationships proved crucial in 2019, when Chavez's successor, Nicolás Maduro, faced a serious legitimacy crisis after elections marked by allegations of fraud.
Both powers refused to recognize the victory of opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president.
Beijing and Moscow have even provided Maduro with economic and military support.
Six years later, Maduro faces a new crisis - the most serious in his more than 12 years in power - but neither China nor Russia has shown any willingness to support him beyond general calls for calm and non-interference.
Everything indicates that Maduro is alone this time in what he has assessed as an attempt by the US to overthrow him from power.
Since September, the Trump administration has deployed about 15.000 troops and more than 20 percent of the US Navy's combat capability to Caribbean waters off the coast of Venezuela, including the world's largest and most sophisticated aircraft carrier.
Trump has said his goal is to combat drug trafficking, but analysts agree with Maduro that Washington's ultimate goal is likely regime change in Venezuela.
Support limited to rhetoric
Maduro's situation is critical, according to Fernando Reyes Mata, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Andrés Bello University in Chile.
"He has little time left. The support he had in the past no longer exists in a real sense, except for certain rhetorical statements," he told BBC Mundo.
Maduro requested help from Russia and China in late October to improve military capabilities, as originally reported by the Washington Post.
The American newspaper obtained internal US government documents at the end of October, which state that Venezuela specifically asked Moscow for help in repairing Russian Sukhoi fighter jets, improving radar systems, and delivering missiles.
Shortly after the report was released, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked whether Moscow was providing aid to Caracas.
Russia maintains constant contact with Venezuela, was his brief response, declining to say anything more.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed "firm support for the Venezuelan authorities in defending national sovereignty" at a press conference.
"A direct attack will only worsen the situation instead of solving problems that have the potential to be resolved legally and diplomatically," she said.
Russian news agency TASS reported on December 7 that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told them that the country stands “shoulder to shoulder” with Venezuela.
"We express solidarity with Venezuela, with which we recently signed an agreement on strategic partnership and cooperation," TASS quoted him as saying.
"We support Venezuela, as it supports us, in many areas. In these difficult times, we stand in solidarity with Caracas and the Venezuelan leadership."
"We hope that the Trump administration will refrain from exacerbating the situation and leading it into a large-scale conflict. We urge them to do so," he added.
But these reactions are a far cry from what happened in 2018.
Russia then sent more than 100 air force personnel and two bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Venezuela as a show of force.
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Other priorities
Reyes Mata, who was Chile's ambassador to China during Michelle Bachelet's first term (2006-2010), argues that Venezuela is no longer a significant issue for Beijing and Moscow in the current geopolitical context, especially after Trump's return to the White House.
"Today, there is no reason for Russia and China to risk everything defending Venezuela, given their other problems, such as Russia's war in Ukraine and China's struggle to coexist on the international stage with Trump," he adds.
Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has allocated enormous financial and military resources to a war that has exhausted its economy and armed forces.
It is also struggling with a series of Western sanctions.
All of this translates into less money and weapons for ideological allies who have arguably become second-rate priorities for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Neither Russia will risk more sanctions, nor China will risk having additional tariffs imposed on it for defending Maduro," Vladimir Ruvinsky, director of the Politics and International Relations Laboratory (PoInt) at Colombia's Isisi University in Cali, told the BBC.
US-China relations have been marked by trade tensions since Trump took office and announced new tariffs on several countries.
Although the situation seemed complicated, the meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea at the end of October, which both leaders described as positive, opened the door to possible agreements.
The US has halved tariffs to 20 percent on Chinese goods linked to controlling the flow of fentanyl.
But tariffs on other Chinese goods remained, averaging close to 50 percent.
For Beijing, defending Maduro would likely mean jeopardizing these gains without much benefit - except ideological.
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China reassesses support for Maduro
According to leaked official documents seen by The Washington Post, Maduro sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping requesting “greater military cooperation” to counter “escalation between the United States and Venezuela.”
Maduro has reportedly asked Beijing to have Chinese companies speed up production of radar systems, presumably so Venezuela can improve its own capabilities.
Chinese loans to Venezuela have been essential for the country's investment and economic development for years.
In fact, from the mid-2000s to 2016, Venezuela was the main beneficiary of Chinese loans in Latin America.
According to the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Caracas received approximately $50 to $60 billion during that period.
This sum is more than 40 percent of total Chinese loans to Latin America, and has turned Venezuela into a key element in the expansion of Chinese influence in the region.
But the country's economic collapse and the deterioration of its oil industry have led Beijing to reassess the extent to which it wants to support Maduro.
In recent years, China has reduced the granting of new loans and is now mainly focused on guaranteeing the repayment of previous loans.
China does not want to spoil the relationship with the future transitional government in advance, adds Vladimir Ruvinski.
"China is prepared to negotiate with any government that eventually replaces Maduro and believes that too much support for him now could have negative consequences when the regime falls," he added.
Recently, on his radio show "With Maduro," the Venezuelan president stated that China "publicly supports Venezuela's right to its own sovereignty and to peace."
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'Maduro is completely alone'
Political events in Venezuela last year also influenced the change in Moscow and Beijing's attitude towards the country, according to Fernando Reyes Mata, director of the Center for Latin American Studies on China at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
"I don't believe any country is willing to support a regime with so little internal support."
"Both Russia and China know that the last presidential election had very clear characteristics of fraud," he states.
The elections in July last year were marked by serious allegations of fraud.
Although the National Electoral Council (CNE), which is run by the ruling party, declared Nicolás Maduro's victory, it did not present evidence or detailed data, as was done in previous elections.
In addition, the opposition, led by Marija Korina Macado, winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, released election records indicating that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won.
"This time, Maduro is completely alone," emphasizes Russian political scientist Vladimir Ruvinsky.
"Russia and China can continue to criticize the US intervention, but they are not ready to move further," he concludes.
The response from both countries clearly shows that Maduro's government can no longer count on the absolute support of these two powers that played a significant role in past crises.
The survival of Maduro and his inner circle this time will likely depend more on their own ability to resist and on how determined Trump is to continue the campaign against him, accusing him of being a leader Sun Cartel, a group that was recently designated a terrorist organization.
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