RT reported that it's likely the administration is trying to goad Venezuela into a response that justifies US doing a decapitating strike on Maduro. So each of these events is best seen as poking at Maduro, trying to get a violent response.
Thing is even if Maduro just takes slap after slap without hitting back they could still just kill him anyways.
I thought of this before Trump got elected again but it comes back into the fore. The problem with China's non-interventionist policy is it can be blunted by a US violently and directly interventionist policy of regime change, color revolutions, coups, wars, decapitating strikes, sanctions, etc. Sure the big countries like Russia and India can afford to stand up to the US and those within China's orbit who do more trade with China and have more to lose from China will stick with them for the most part. The issue is tons of people out there across the world who are greedy little comprador opportunists, unprincipled, etc who will do what's best for their pocket-books even if it burns their nation to the ground. We may or may not see this with Afghanistan if those rumors of the US offering the Taliban shit-loads of money are true, it would be putting greed over the good of their people but for religious fundamentalists that shouldn't be a surprise.
Sure the world eventually gets wary of this and after 10-20 years most countries overthrow the regime (though usually remain trapped in some sort of debt bondage their previous leaders put them in and don't go far enough in the the sense of throwing off the shackles) but then the US can just switch back to friendly liberal mode. As long as they dominate the propaganda, as long as they control the culture, as long as they have Hollywood and control of the internet. And even if that doesn't work it gives the US a decade of dominance and control in which to encircle, isolate, and remove China from the global economy and pour pressure on them to attempt to force a collapse or surrender.
