For debt investors betting Venezuela will default this year as oil slumps, there is one big wildcard that threatens to sink the trade: China.
The Asian nation, whose $3.9 trillion in foreign reserves are the world’s largest, has a history of lending out money to Venezuela, having doled out $45 billion over the past decade. And it has a strong incentive to provide more -- Venezuela sits on the world’s biggest oil reserves while China is the top crude importer.
