> China also doesn't have the capabilities to extract the super heavy and poor quality Venezuelan crude
They could build this. That's orthogonal to planting an oil-burning carrier group halfway around the world next to nuclear CVNs that could be reached from U.S. soil by Cessna 172s.
Oh yes, we completely agree. More to the point, the tens of billions of dollars they'd burn–at a minimum–on a pointless proxy war with the U.S. would be better spent continuing to reduce China's reliance on foreign oil.
I specifically meant that it wouldn't be worth it for China to do any kind of large scale oil extraction in Venezuela even if the US let them. Most of the oil in Venezuela is really hard to extract profitably.
Without US expertise and investment the oil in Venezuela will tend to stay in the ground.
They could build this. That's orthogonal to planting an oil-burning carrier group halfway around the world next to nuclear CVNs that could be reached from U.S. soil by Cessna 172s.