Chinese technicians are working with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro to knock out internet access in the country, opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s envoy to Washington charges.
“They have been providing technical support to the regime in order to withdraw the social media in Venezuela and [for] how to cut access to the internet,” Ambassador Carlos Vecchio told the Washington Examiner.
Vecchio called for continued international pressure on Maduro, rejecting the perception that the opposition’s drive to take over the government in Caracas has stalled. Western powers, including the United States, recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, but Maduro has kept control despite protests over corruption and widespread food and medical shortages.
China has previously exported high-tech tools that authoritarian governments use to retain power, but Vecchio maintained that the Maduro regime is doomed by a lack of popular support.
“Listen well: Juan Guaidó has become the most important, the most popular president in Venezuela in the last 20 years, without appearing on national television — only using social media,” Vecchio said Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington. “And the regime now is cutting access to the internet. So we have a united society, a united government, under the leadership of Juan Guaidó.”
Maduro has retained control of Venezuela’s military with the help of Cuban security services and Russian advisers and equipment. China’s support for the dictator has been financial for the most part, but Vecchio’s comments evoke U.S. worries about Beijing’s inroads in Latin America.
“The more China becomes intertwined with our Western Hemisphere nations, the more likely it is they can surveil, they can monitor, they can surround the United States,” Colorado Republican Cory Gardner, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently told the Washington Examiner.
Representatives of the regime and the opposition are expected to meet this week in Norway for another round of negotiations to end a political crisis that has appeared stalemated since April 30, when Maduro withstood Guaidó’s attempt to foment a military uprising. Guaidó’s delegation is demanding that Maduro leave power and allow the opposition leader to establish an interim government that can host free elections.
“We have a huge opportunity in front of us to get a solution in Venezuela in the months to come — to be very clear, this year,” Vecchio said. “Maduro, in our view, is weaker, and we know at firsthand that leadership [around] Maduro is looking for a change, because they recognize that Maduro … is not able to resolve any problem inside Venezuela.”
