Foreign media reported that Beijing has recently met with Venezuela's political opposition and is renegotiating billions of dollars of loans to the country, given its instability. The report claimed this would mark a shift in China's approach to Venezuela. 

As its domestic instability continues, shops have been looted and international observers are mostly downbeat about the government of President Nicolás Maduro. As Venezuela has borrowed tens of billions of dollars from China, both the Chinese and international media are keeping a close eye on the safety of those loans.

But it would be inaccurate to conclude that China has shifted its attitude toward Venezuela. China is unlikely to change its position on developing friendly cooperative relations with the country. It is no longer taboo for Beijing to meet with the opposition in many countries, and Beijing's meeting with the Venezuela opposition, if true, is nothing to make a fuss over.

The foreign report about Venezuela, if true, doesn't mean Beijing arranged the meeting just to call in its loans. However uncertain the situation in Venezuela is, it is legitimate for Beijing to engage with relevant parties in the country. We are convinced that the Venezuela administration has a heart big enough to understand that and China's foreign ministry is capable of handling the subtlety of the ties properly. 

The following approaches are needed to assess China's huge loans to Venezuela. First of all, the two countries have agreed to the oil-for-loans deal, which is basically sound given Venezuela has the world's second-largest oil reserves.

Besides, China-Venezuela friendly cooperation goes beyond partisan interest of Venezuela and is a major strategic choice of the nation. Venezuela's relations with the US do not exclude its ties with China. Instead, it serves the interests of most Latin American countries to use their relations with China for geo-strategic balance.

So far there has been no reason or sign that the Venezuelan opposition, if it takes office, will make any thorough break with China.

Moreover, there are risks for Venezuela's loans from China and other international lenders, but the loans are not gone unless Venezuela collapses completely, which is however hardly likely given its rich resources and recovering oil prices,  China may have underestimated that Venezuela could be so heavily bogged down by political turmoil and the oil price plunge. The case warns us that lending to others must be prudent and deliberated.

While being tactically thoughtful, we need to be strategically courageous. China has seen far more benefits than losses from its comprehensive international cooperation and has not slumped in this process. It's unprofessional and short-sighted to accuse the Chinese government of spending money across the world just because China is in dire need of funds domestically.

We have to know that China has kept the risk of its international loans controllable and it has been one of the biggest benefactors of dynamic international cooperation. It would be extremely irrational if any regime in the world defaults on China intentionally. Venezuela has this understanding.