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.
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.