Why some Venezuelans fear Maduro is selling them out to China

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro took his exhausted country by surprise on Wednesday by boarding a flight to China. The visit — widely believed to be a pitch by Maduro's fiscally-crippled government for a loan — is likely to sound alarms in capitals around the hemisphere as governments try to guess what Venezuela is offering China and what China's motives might be for lending money to a country that can't pay its debts now. Beijing knows about Venezuela's solvency crisis better than most. Three years ago, China turned off the credit taps after lending Venezuela more than US$50 billion. It later had to grant the Latin nation a grace period for repayment. Venezuela watchers say that if China is reopening those taps, it can only be in return for far-reaching concessions, leading some to ask whether Beijing is about to establish its first real beachhead here in the Americas. More…