Photo: Katelynn Jackson/U.S. Air Force/Getty Images
Immediately after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, commentators questioned whether “Operation Absolute Resolve” could serve as a textbook example or template for other countries to copy. Trending on Chinese social media were calls by Chinese netizens for Beijing to replicate the same military operation and arrest the leader of Taiwan. Some argued that such a move could quickly “solve” Beijing’s Taiwan problem.
This Experts React assesses whether China can successfully engage in a similar operation against Taiwan and what leading experts in Taiwan view as key lessons learned and implications of the U.S. military operation.
Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, Professor, Tamkang University Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies
The United States’ Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3, 2026, achieved total domain dominance before special operations forces even touched the ground in Caracas, showcasing a level of network-centric warfare that remains a daunting benchmark for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). For the PLA, matching this requires not just advanced hardware systems, but a level of decentralized command and joint-force integration it is still rehearsing.
While Venezuela’s regime was hollowed out by years of economic collapse and internal distrust, Taiwan presents a fundamentally different target for infiltration. Taiwan’s professional military and robust civil society create a high-friction environment that limits the PLA’s room for maneuver. The magnitude of internal decay that the United States exploited in Venezuela is effectively absent in Taiwan.
A primary objective of any potential Chinese strike would be “decapitation”—the removal of Taiwan’s political leadership to force a rapid surrender. However, Taiwan’s multiparty electoral system, checks and balances across branches of government, and active civil and media sectors create redundancy that preserves governmental continuity despite leadership shocks. That will make it extremely difficult for Beijing to achieve its political objective.
The U.S. action in Venezuela once again confirms what President Trump’s National Security Strategy has emphasized: The U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere constitute the core of U.S. national interests. While the United States will not abandon its strategic stakes in the Indo-Pacific and will continue to empower its Asian allies to strengthen their self-defense capabilities, policy analysts in Taiwan will nevertheless pay close attention to what Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s references to U.S. strategic “recalibration” and “prioritization” at his press conference on December 19, 2025, mean for Asia.
Finally, how the United States assists Venezuela in restoring its political, economic, and social order in ways that align with the political objectives of U.S. military action, and how Washington subsequently approaches other Latin American countries and the Western Hemisphere as a whole, will likely become a focal point of sustained observation for countries across Asia. After all, strategic competition between Beijing and Washington is not confined to Latin America; it carries profound and far-reaching implications for Asia as well.
I-Chung Lai, President, Prospect Foundation
The U.S. Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3, 2026, demonstrates how the Trump administration prioritizes the Western Hemisphere affairs. This action also provides the first glimpse of the meaning and the execution of the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine.
In Taiwan, two interpretations have emerged on how the Trump administration’s foreign policy trajectory should be assessed. One school of thought argues that this operation signifies that the Trump administration will prioritize issues in the United States’ near abroad, with correspondingly less attention spent on other regions, including the Indo-Pacific theater. From this perspective, the operation amounts to a form of strategic retrenchment—one from which China will benefit the most—particularly if the situation in Venezuela further deteriorates, demanding more U.S. attention and resources.
The opposing school of thought contends that this episode demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to its National Security Strategy. From this perspective, the document’s heavy emphasis on the security of Taiwan and the significance of the Indo-Pacific theater cannot be overstated. The display of overwhelming U.S. military power and prowess demonstrated in Venezuela, coupled with the Trump administration’s willingness to utilize them, formed a powerful deterrent against U.S. competitors in the Western Pacific. Proponents of this view contend that Trump’s Venezuela operation will make China more hesitant than willing to attempt aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific.
Since China’s position has consistently denied Taiwan’s international existence, the Trump administration’s controversial action on Venezuela would not alter China’s calculation on Taiwan. Instead, China will utilize this opportunity to weaken the United States’ global image and to showcase itself as the guarantor of a rule-based international order, despite how selectively China has been in terms of conforming to international law.
Observers in Taiwan also noticed that China has been relatively quiet, albeit expressing strong protest against the U.S. action, about its relationship with Venezuela. Venezuela received significant Chinese support in both the economic and military fields. However, China has become AWOL as the current Venezuelan political leadership is in dire need of support. China also behaved similarly when the United States bombed Iran last year. How those actions will affect the perceptions of China from countries in the Global South is of intense interest in Taiwan’s strategic community.
The reactions from the Latin American states are divided about Operation Absolute Resolve. Although Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia condemn the U.S. action as violating Venezuela’s sovereignty, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay have demonstrated a more supportive attitude. The U.S. military action in Venezuela did not generate widespread anti-American sentiment in Latin America, as some people suggest. This phenomenon might be related to the recently emerged political anti–pink tide in Latin America.
Since one of the consequences of the Latin American pink tide is the surge of Chinese influence in this region, the waning of Latin America’s left politics indicates there could be opportunities for Taiwan to seek a closer relationship with countries in this region. There is already much speculation about Honduras’ possible resumption of its diplomatic relations with Taiwan as a result of its presidential election last December. Whether there will be more openings from other countries in this region to Taiwan remains to be seen. The current political climate and the reemphasis on the Western Hemisphere affairs by the Trump administration did seem to encourage Taiwan to explore these possibilities, and even more so after the success of Operation Absolute Resolve.
Admiral Lee Hsi-min (retired), Former Chief of the General Staff, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense
Does the U.S. military operation against Venezuela provide a useful template for how China could punish or decapitate Taiwan? Some argue that if the United States disregarded international law and forcibly removed an objectionable foreign leader, China might be tempted to replicate a similar operation across the Taiwan Strait. While this assumption may appear intuitive, the U.S. military operation in Caracas does not offer China a useful or transferable model for action against Taiwan.
The fundamental reason is strategic intent. Beijing has consistently framed the Taiwan issue as a purely internal matter. Whether an operation violates international law has never been a decisive factor in China’s consideration of using force against Taiwan. Should China resort to military action, its objective would not be symbolic punishment or leadership removal, but the comprehensive occupation and control of Taiwan. The forcible seizure or elimination of Taiwan’s political leadership alone would be insufficient to achieve China’s strategic goal of unification.
A second critical difference lies in Taiwan’s political system. Taiwan is not governed by a personalist authoritarian regime. It is a mature democracy where governance rests on a stable constitutional and legal framework rather than on the authority of any individual. If national leaders were incapacitated, legally defined mechanisms of succession would ensure continuity of government. The removal of a president would neither paralyze the state nor produce the kind of systemic collapse or mass capitulation that decapitation strategies are designed to induce.
Even if China sought to emulate such an operation, it would face substantial operational challenges and risks. The U.S. action in Caracas was far more complex than commonly assumed, requiring a high degree of integration across intelligence collection, electronic and information warfare, precision strike capabilities, special operations forces, internal political manipulation, and tightly synchronized joint operations. The U.S. military has accumulated extensive experience conducting similar missions. Yet even with this experience, it has suffered notable failures, including the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, Operation Eagle Claw in Iran in 1980, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. These cases underscore the extraordinary difficulty and risk of such operations, even for highly capable militaries.
Conversely, the Chinese military lacks comparable experience in executing complex, politically sensitive special operations of this nature. Moreover, Taiwan’s defensive environment differs sharply from that of Venezuela. Taiwan has long invested in robust intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. In recent years, Taipei has further strengthened its counter-decapitation posture by expanding military police units responsible for protecting central government institutions, adjusting the missions of key Marine Corps formations, deploying amphibious reconnaissance forces to critical approaches, and conducting regular counter-decapitation exercises under a dedicated contingency framework known as the Wan Jun Plan. This plan is specifically designed to ensure leadership protection, command continuity, and effective crisis response in the event of an attempted decapitation strike.
Instead, the U.S. action in Caracas is more likely to reinforce Taipei’s focus on counter-decapitation preparedness. Any Chinese attempt to replicate such an approach would therefore entail high operational risk with uncertain prospects of success.
This assessment should not, however, lead to complacency in Taiwan. If China were to decide to use force—particularly in the opening phase of a conflict—decapitation operations would remain among its preferred options. Beijing has likely been preparing and rehearsing forms of “surgical” decapitation for years. Such operations, however, would more likely resemble the U.S. approach during the 2003 Iraq War, relying on long-range precision strikes designed to generate shock and awe, rather than a leadership seizure operation. The objective would be to coerce Taiwan into negotiations rather than to produce immediate political collapse.
The key lesson from the U.S. operation in Venezuela is therefore not that decapitation is easy or decisive, but that it is complex, risky, and highly context-dependent. For Taiwan, the appropriate response is to continue strengthening counter-decapitation capabilities and to further institutionalize robust government continuity mechanisms. These measures remain essential to ensuring that Taiwan can withstand and defeat any attempt to undermine its political leadership or national resilience through decapitation strategies.
Bonny Lin, Director and Senior Adviser, China Power Project
The January 2026 U.S. Operation Absolute Resolve that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro likely provided significant lessons learned for China on how to execute successful modern joint special operations against a weaker power. The U.S. operation, however, is far from an appropriate, standalone operation that China can conduct to unify with Taiwan. It is possible Beijing could consider a similar operation to punish Taiwan or sow chaos on the island, but the cost of doing so may outweigh the benefits.
At the strategic level, Washington does not want to permanently occupy or run Venezuela. U.S. officials had assessed that top members of the Maduro regime, including Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, are well-positioned to lead an interim government after the military operation that the United States could work with. President Trump views Rodríguez as more pragmatic and less ideological than Maduro.
Assuming China is capable of such a complex operation (which is not a safe assumption, as my colleagues indicated above), it is not clear that Beijing would be satisfied with an outcome similar to what the U.S. operation produced—where the Taiwan government remains in place, and the Taiwan vice president steps up to lead.
China could consider supporting pro-China opposition leaders after such a decapitation operation, but opposition leaders would face an uphill battle against a Taiwan public that is enraged and even more anti-China. This could work in China’s favor to sow chaos on the island, but chaos by itself does not ensure better PRC prospects for unification.
To maximize the chance that pro-China figures come to power, China might have to put boots on the ground in Taiwan or engage in significant other means to coerce the island. This means that a Taiwan leadership arrest or removal operation alone is insufficient to completely change the direction of Taiwan. Indeed, the reason President Trump wanted to work with Rodríguez is because of U.S. assessments that the Venezuelan opposition would need U.S. military backing if it were to successfully replace the Maduro government.
One of the major downsides of China trying to replicate the U.S. military operation would be international pushback against Beijing, coupled with intensified support for Taipei. Chinese media has extensively documented regional and global reactions to the U.S. military move, and the U.S. action was against a dictator with a horrific human rights record. Capturing a respected, democratically elected leader is likely to trigger far more global condemnation. The United States and U.S. allies may also pledge more support for Taipei, position more military assets closer to Taiwan, and sanction Beijing in hopes of deterring further PRC adventurism. Venezuela has a transactional relationship with its friends China and Russia, and neither viewed protecting Caracas as core to its interests—that is not the case for how the United States and Japan prioritize Taiwan.
If anything, the one major lesson China should take away from Operation Absolute Resolve is that President Trump is not shy about using military force to safeguard U.S. interests to achieve “peace through strength.” Chinese media have already noted that President Trump greenlighted military strikes against seven countries in his first year back in office, much more than his predecessors. Chinese media is also wise to reprint views that the success and low cost of U.S. military operations against Venezuela could increase U.S. confidence and willingness to use military force again.
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