Most ropes begin life as a single thread, as will this.

And all single threads that never turn into ropes also begin life as a single thread.

I think you're just seeing what you want to see here, Dope. There's not going to be any materially significant effect on China. It's tiny. Their imports of Venezuelan oil were just too small a percentage of their overall crude consumption (the 4.5% figure is their percentage of seaborne imports, not overall oil consumption). The discount they were getting for Venezuela from the sanctions (as opposed to the discount that heavy sour trades at to ICE Brent no matter the source) just wasn't all that high. Both are small enough that China can easily replace the oil with increased imports from Russia and Iran, if things don't pop off, both of whose product also trades at an even higher discount due to sanctions.

This isn't a rope around their nuts. It will have a trivial effect on their overall oil costs and availability. It's barely a paper cut.