The most chilling lesson of Donald Trump’s gutting of the so-called rules-based order is; when the Washington war machine flexes its muscle, Moscow and Beijing fold, look the other way and continue to collect the spoils of America’s wars.
The global South’s relationship with these two superpowers offers no tangible protection beyond vetoes in the United Nations Security Council that the aggressors simply ignore. The different reactions by the affected parties to the brazen abduction of president Nicolas Maduro, the bombing of Caracas in early January and Trump’s ham-handed attempts to annex Greenland, as well as a purported military operation in Nigeria, show the global South is on its own.
Venezuela sits atop an estimated 303 billion barrels of oil, about 17% of the global total and more than Saudi Arabia, whose reserves stand at about 267 billion barrels. Venezuela under Maduro got rid of experienced petroleum staff for loyalists, and the sharp drop in oil prices beginning in 2014, worsened by US sanctions, led the country straight into the arms of China’s debt vortex with its insatiable need for oil.
These sanctions stopped oil exports to major markets like India and the European Union and prevented the import of diluent chemicals needed to process Venezuela’s heavy crude.Hyperinflation meant a humanitarian crisis that caused almost eight million Venezuelans to flee the country. Capital flight followed, and the loss of technical expertise and dilapidating infrastructure left the country struggling to maintain basic operations.
Around 80% of Venezuelan oil was sent to China last year, and Maduro’s last social media post before his abduction was about a meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi, the Chinese special envoy for Latin America: “It was a friendly meeting, reaffirming the strong bonds of friendship between China and Venezuela. In good and bad times!”
Hours later Maduro and his wife were in US custody. In response to the bloody abduction, the Chinese foreign ministry posted a brief statement on its website expressing shock and strongly condemning the US’ blatant use of force against a sovereign state and action against its president. On Sunday, 4 January, foreign minister Wang Yi also issued a statement reiterating China’s position: “We have never believed that any country can act as the world’s police, nor do we accept that any nation can declare itself the world’s judge.”
At an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting held on 5 January 2026 to address the military operation against Venezuela, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador, also demanded the immediate release of the Maduro couple, condemning “the US’ armed aggression, which violates all international legal norms.” He added, “The attack on Venezuela’s leader is a precursor to a return to a lawless era.”
The news cycle has since moved on from Maduro to the various crises Donald Trump triggered to distract the world from his sprawling Epstein files scandal.
For years, resource rich but militarily weak developing countries believed that a multipolar world underpinned by the economic and military weight of the East would provide a shield against American hegemony. This has been revealed as a dangerous fantasy. Instead, China and Russia, whose oil from Venezuela has not stopped flowing despite American ‘control’, again proved the old adage about no permanent friends or enemies in politics, only permanent interest.
Namibia and its neighbours must realise that their reliance on eastern power is merely a change of bosses, not an avenue to true security.
RELEGATED UN
The United States of America has demonstrated that it will take what it wants when it wants, and no amount of Russian hardware or Chinese investment will stop that predator determined to seize control of vital resources or strategic territories.
Namibians have every reason to fear that they could be next in an expanded American imperial land grab. Namibia’s geographical location and vast mineral wealth, including its emerging petroleum resources, make it an attractive target for any power seeking to secure the commodities and supply channels of the future. The Namibian government’s statement after the Maduro abduction was a meek administrative exercise that conspicuously lacked the signature of the minister and was met with deafening silence from the head of state.
This reeks of a government paralysed by the implications of those events and hiding behind the safety of multilateral jargon while the foundations of international law are dismantled. Or maybe they don’t see how explosive the planet is right now, or perhaps this administration hopes that Trump’s idiocracy will never happen upon us.
The government’s approach, clinging to 20th-century liberation struggle rhetoric while hoping the UN will act as a global policeman, is no strategy; it’s a suicide mission.
The only viable solution for the region’s chronic economic vulnerability lies in a radical shift towards internal integration and a collective self-reliant southern Africa that must move beyond the performative politics of solidarity and towards a genuine unified addressing of regional issues. This requires a more integrated approach to regional development trade and, most crucially, defence. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) must evolve from a talk shop for tired liberation-era leaders into a formidable economic and military bloc capable of deterring external aggressions by creating a single integrated regional market and a unified command structure.
UNITE OR PERISH
The region, with its approximately 400 million people, interconnected infrastructure, and common monetary system, can build the necessary leverage to engage with global powers on its own terms. However, true emancipation will only come if the region stops looking to the East or the West for salvation and starts looking to itself for solutions.The European nations’ resistance to Trump’s hare-brained scheme of annexing Greenland shows what an assertive and united front-foot strategy could do against a wannabe strongman who plays monopoly with the lives of hundreds of millions of people just so he can make a quick buck on the stock exchange.
By relying on generic platitudes and inactivity, rather than forceful action, the political establishment is failing to confront a dangerous global precedent where superpowers can aggressively destabilise resource-rich nations with total impunity.
China and Russia both have vast interests in Namibia, and have already shown they too are only here to extract as much as they can, as fast as they can. The media regularly report how Namibian raw materials, from seal genitals to lithium, are exported unprocessed to China, often under the pretence of research, by unscrupulous Chinese businesspeople.
Unions and activists regularly shout about how our good friend China’s companies ignore or violate Namibia’s labour laws.
Russian state-owned mining company Rosatom has in the last few years spent lots on fully paid-for media jaunts to popularise their in-situ leaching uranium mining method in Omaheke.
Local farmers say the method will poison the ground water and negatively affect vast tracts of food producing land. The company is positioning itself to benefit from Namibia’s newfound nuclear energy ambitions.
Furthermore, a Russian businessman has embroiled the government in a 99-year land lease agreement controversy while the ruling party has strong ties to that country, a relationship formed during the struggle for independence.
It is no accident that Namibia’s Minister of International Relations and Trade Selma Ashipala-Musavyi and her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met in both December and January “to further strengthen bilateral relations, cooperation, and trade between the two countries”.
By framing the current crisis through the lens of anticolonial struggle and steadfast friendship, the government is indulging in ideological nostalgia that does nothing to protect Namibia’s interests in an era where such bonds are increasingly irrelevant to the exercise of power. The government has failed to provide a pragmatic strategy or leverage its proximity to these superpowers, as the world of old alliances and the United Nations safeguards have proven utterly toothless. We must stop relying on foreign aid, foreign military protection and foreign ideological frameworks to define our future.
Regional development must be driven by intraregional trade and the beneficiation of our own resources for the benefit of our own people rather than exporting raw materials to fill the industries of the very powers that threaten our sovereignty. A more integrated approach means harmonising laws, building regional infrastructure that connects our economies, and speaking with a single unshakeable voice in international forums.
Just as China developed and launched their version of SWIFT, so should Africa.
The Americans opting for battering ram diplomacy should be a wake-up call that cannot be ignored.
If the region continues to rely on the goodwill of superpowers or the legitimacy of a broken international system they are merely waiting for their turn on the chopping block.
The path to security and prosperity is not paved with empty rhetoric and meaningless diplomacy, but with regional integration and the courage to build an independent, self-sufficient region.
We must either unite and emancipate ourselves or remain forever enslaved to the leeches of imperialism, regardless of which flag they fly.
