Donald Trump ordered the abduction of Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro, who is now detained with his wife an probably already extradited to the US. This is another gross violation of international law that pushes the world closer to its brim.

Trump has always been a sort of a buffoon but still one that commanded respect if not admiration on the basis of his political stance of non-interventionism and is avowed declarations of restoring world stability. This was a first step to heal international relations, by agreeing to some equilibrium of power and collaborations based on diplomacy and obedience to international laws, at least principles.

Now that he succumbed to the worst offenses of the USA against international law to single-handedly stage a coup against a sovereign country, for obvious geopolitical interest and the looting of its national resources, the respect vanishes and only the buffoon remains. This does not make Trump less of a major and important political figure, but not one acting for the benefit of humanity in general and his people in particular, but one who now sides with the other criminals that preceded him, being in addition buffonesque while his predecessors were merely pupets.

The main question now becomes what will China do. It is clear that international order does not rule anymore and that big powers should now do what they feel is best for their interests, or maybe even necessary for their own preservation. In this context, failure of China to similarly seize assets it believes belong to it sphere of influence and that might escape it critically otherwise, will be a clear sign of weakness, in a time where realism and practicality took over diplomacy and legality. Prominently, this concerns Taiwan, which has also been the source of tensions recently. It would be ethically wrong, but not surprising, and also geopolitically wrong, for China to remain, not neutral, but passive.

China would have no difficulty—worse still, they would have complete political legitimacy—in similarly imposing their will in all questions of their supreme national interest. Who could oppose them? Neither the US nor Russia would have neither the military nor the moral standing to do so. They would condemn it, and that's it. China has at least as good arguments as Russia with Ukraine and definitely stronger arguments than US with Venezuela (the narco-traffic is a pathetic masquerade) to take over Taiwan. They can make up as many reasons as they wish.

It would be quite surprising from China to let other great powers take their share of the world's resources, at their expense (a Chinese delegation was discussing plans for collaborations and investments hours before Maduro's abduction), with no other reaction than formal protests. It would be admirable, but almost to the point of foolishness.

In fact, we can even suspect that the sharing of the world has been effected a long time ago already, with Russia taking over the eastern part of Ukraine and China Taiwan, as the US would take over South America. Maybe Greenland has not yet been settled. It all looks like a modern installment of Yalta, anyway. And if not one explicitly agreed upon, at least one tacitly accepted.

Would China be able to remain within the legal boundaries that everybody else tramples upon, it would be either an exceptional demonstration of force and self-confidence, or a first step towards their relinquishing their emergence as a global, international superpower, to remain confined within its provincial borders today, and endangered itself tomorrow.

All this started decades ago with the US when they started to invade the Middle-East in a similar fashion, encouraging, if not compelling, others to follow in their wake. Although it didn't serve them well, now they go for another round of looting, which can only further encourage others to do the same.

Those are worrying and sad circumstances.