Subject: Re: Dope?
Nothing changed vis a vis China and Taiwan because of Venezuela. They believe Taiwan is a breakaway province and a part of China. That perception was not affected at all by us arresting Maduro.

And China already believes they own the South China Sea and everything in it. You of all people are especially aware of their territorial ambitions far beyond Taiwan.

It doesn't change their desires. But it makes it more difficult for the rest of the world to say to China, "You're wrong." For the rest of the world to marshall diplomatic and economic forces in opposition to China's ambitions in the region.

Right now, the rules-based international order is that countries cannot use military force against other countries except in certain very limited circumstances - which circumstances do not include "they have resource we want or need" or "our national security would be better off if we had their territory instead of just our own." The idea is that if even the strong nations agree to be bound by those rules, then everyone has the protection of being more secure (though not absolutely certain) than in the absence of that rules-based system.

If the U.S. backs away from that rules-based international order in favor of a system where using military force against other countries is okay if the strong country really wants something from the weak country, then it becomes much easier for other strong countries to do the same thing. Not that there was anything physically preventing them from doing it in the first place - if China wanted to roll into Laos and take a chunk for themselves, nothing could stop them. But because of the rules-based order, doing so would present China with costs in the international community that make taking a bite out of Laos using a military invasion less attractive.

When you erode that, you don't change what China wants - or what it believes it's entitled to - but you do change the cost benefit equation to the use of military action, and you expand the collection of excuses that can be made for military action that China might determine (correctly or not) it can engage in without arousing the costly wrath of the international community. Again, these norms don't prevent China from using military force, but increase the cost of using direct military force relative to other efforts to try to obtain their ambitions.