In Fatal Move, when a Chinese mastermind succeeds in crashing an AirFrance airliner, a petroleum engineer from fictional GasTex is killed along with a dozen members of a Chinese delegation to Venezuela. That’s because China and Texas Citgo are helping Maduro evade US sanctions. China imports Venezuelan crude to be processed by small refiners’ petroleum-derived road construction materials as well as fuel. Citgo can’t openly flout US sanctions, but they continue to accumulate cash reserves and protect that cash from the US Treasury, an investment to be tapped at a later time by wealthy, corporate Venezuelan interests. This oil business butters the bread of the ruling elites Maduro must please to stay in power. Texas and China are in bed together.
Oil diplomacy, Yuan diplomacy and trade diplomacy are tools of China’s foreign affairs. Texas (via Citgo) and China (via “teapot refineries” and commodity exchange to pay down debt) have similar interests in bypassing US sanctions on Venezuela.