Will China dance to Chavez’s tune?

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez’s world tour has landed him in China for the fourth time during his presidency. One of his main objectives there is to try to draw China into his global “guerrilla war” against the United States. The former paratrooper was elected president in 1998 and, buttressed by petrodollars, has proclaimed himself the anti-American revolutionary successor to his mentor, Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Chavez, who arrived in China praising the Middle Kingdom as the world’s alternative to American capitalism, has long lauded Mao Tse-tung as a brilliant guerrilla strategist. Mao theorized about what Chavez is trying to do: coordinate a series of unconventional attacks on the United States that will chip away at the seemingly invincible enemy and prove it to be a “paper tiger.”

Beijing is warmly welcoming Chavez, and important oil, mining and telecommunications deals between Venezuela and China are in the works. But China almost certainly will not leap into the vanguard of any Chavez-led offensive against the United States. It has far too much to lose economically by seriously confronting the Americans.

Over the last month, Chavez has been roaming the world lining up what are, or he hopes will be, allies in his guerrilla war against the U.S. He is promoting Venezuela’s candidacy for a seat on the U.N. Security Council -- which Beijing endorsed Thursday. In Russia, President Vladimir V. Putin sold him advanced military arms and licensed factories for producing Kalashnikov assault rifles in Venezuela, over strong U.S. objections. And in Iran, Chavez signed important oil-related accords.

Members of Congress and military commanders in Hawaii are concerned about Venezuela’s growing links with Russia and Iran, and also by Chavez’s ties to China. Several months ago, while Chinese President Hu Jintao was visiting Washington, the Pacific Command even conducted a war game in which Venezuela joined Iran and China in a showdown with the United States.

But Chavez’s visit to Beijing isn’t likely to be devoted to planning a military attack on the United States. Instead, it will focus on expanding Chinese investments in Venezuelan oil. The always politically driven Chavez is determined to undermine the U.S. in part by denying it access to his country’s rich oil reserves. But right now, the United States is also Venezuela’s main oil market, so Chavez needs to find a replacement buyer.

Chavez frequently says that in the future Venezuela will provide up to 20% of China’s total oil import needs. If total Chinese oil imports rise to 7 million barrels a day in a decade, as they may, this would bring Venezuelan sales to China to 1.4 million barrels, about what Caracas currently sells to the United States.

Many obstacles remain to Chavez’s reaching his oil delivery goal, including insufficient production, a shortage of tankers, lack of refineries and very long and inconvenient transportation routes.

The Chinese are investing in Venezuela, as many countries are, but Beijing appears to view Chavez as both an opportunity and a danger. Importing oil from Venezuela will diversify China’s foreign suppliers. China is also concerned about a unipolar world dominated by the U.S. To the extent that Venezuela and its Latin American friends flourish, they will tend to dissipate U.S. power. That’s good for China.

But to the degree that Chavez is successful in destabilizing the Americas, it will be more difficult for China to enforce trade, investment and other agreements and to guarantee the safe and efficient delivery of oil and other resources from producers in Latin America to China. And for China, nothing is more important than a guaranteed supply of resources necessary for continuing domestic growth. So that would be bad.

Chavez has often tried to draw China into his disputes with the U.S., without much success. Thus far, most Chinese activities in Venezuela have been largely what one might expect from a large, rapidly modernizing nation seeking to overcome 150 years of failure and humiliation and planning to take its place as a major “stakeholder” in the modern world.

But despite colorful grandstanding, Chavez is not likely to make significant headway on this trip either.