By Jia Feimao | 2026-01-08

A US raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has fueled debate among Chinese speakers online, including calls for Beijing to arrest Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te. China has long drilled for leadership-targeting scenarios tied to Taiwan, but analysts say Beijing is unlikely to act.

China considers Taiwan its territory and has never ruled out using force to seize it.

After US forces captured Maduro in Caracas January 3, the story quickly reverberated across Chinese-language social media. On Weibo, nationalist-leaning accounts asked why Beijing could not "do the same" in Taiwan and arrest Lai.

China has built training facilities that replicate the streets around Taiwan's Presidential Office complex in Taipei and has used them for drills tied to "decapitation" scenarios. Taiwanese media recently cited military sources as saying the People's Liberation Army is conducting related training at bases in Inner Mongolia, including live-force elements, simulated strikes and airborne operations.

Nikkei Asia reported in October 2025 that the mock area has almost tripled in size since 2020 and has been deliberately publicized to exert psychological pressure on Taiwan.

After Maduro's capture, the related hashtag rose to No. 1 on Weibo's hot-search list and drew more than 600 million views within 24 hours, according to platform data, The New York Times reported on January 6.

Under a post by state-run Xinhua, one popular comment called the US operation "a very important lesson -- for Taiwan in particular."

Another said: "If the United States can arrest another country's president, then China can absolutely arrest Lai Ching-te."

Scholars weigh in

The phrase "today's Venezuela, tomorrow's Taiwan?" quickly became a focal point of online debate, according to the BBC. International scholars said, however, the likelihood of Beijing attempting a similar operation is low.

"Beijing has not refrained from kinetic or other actions on Taiwan out of deference to international law and norms. It has pursued a strategy of coercion without violence," Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, tweeted.

"The operation in Venezuela is not a blueprint for Chinese takeover of Taiwan: Capturing Taiwan President Lai Ching-te would not likely help Beijing achieve reunification," Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, tweeted.

"Taking Taiwan depends on China's developing but still insufficient capabilities, not what [US President Donald] Trump did on a faraway continent," Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.

Reaction in Taiwan

In Taiwan, the online debate produced sharply divided reactions. Some argued the episode would bolster Beijing's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. Others said the US raid showed an ability to penetrate Chinese- and Russian-built defenses that Venezuela had counted on, and that it could strengthen confidence in Taiwan's defense given its reliance on US arms sales.

Taiwan's United Daily News on January 4 cited Taiwanese Gen. (ret.) Wu Sz-huai as saying a "decapitation" strike would likely be paired with broader operations such as invasion or blockade, and that a single-point raid could not replace a cross-domain campaign.

The Liberty Times on January 6 quoted a Taiwanese military source as saying the military has built layered protection for the neighborhood around the presidential palace and other command centers and has adjusted force deployments in the greater Taipei area.

Those deployments include medium- and short-range air defense missiles and artillery, counter-drone systems and a Taipei garrison combat force made up of rapid-reaction military police and marines, the source said.

Meanwhile, some Chinese internet users dodged censorship by repeatedly invoking the title of Fish Leong's 2005 pop song "Unfortunately It Wasn't You," using it as a coded expression of regret that the raid had not seized Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Censors have since removed the song from distribution in China, according to Taiwanese media.