Friday 10th December 2021
Change of page to China
Nicaragua breaks off relations with Taiwan
Few countries in the world have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The reason is pressure from China, Beijing regards the island state as a breakaway province. Now the country has to accept another defeat in the struggle for international recognition.
Serious setback for Taiwan: The democratic island republic loses another ally in Latin America. Nicaragua surprisingly declared its diplomatic relations with Taipei ended on Friday and embraced Beijing’s one-China doctrine. The reason for switching sides was initially unclear. But countries mostly expect economic advantages from a good relationship with China. Beijing also often puts Taiwan’s diplomatic allies under massive pressure.
After talks by delegations from Nicaragua and China in the east Chinese port city of Tianjin, the two countries began their new relations by signing a communiqué. Taiwan was “dismayed”. As the Foreign Ministry announced in Taipei, its diplomatic staff will be withdrawn from Managua. “We regret that President Daniel Ortega’s government is ignoring the long friendship between the peoples of Taiwan and Nicaragua.”
Worldwide there are only 14 countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan – including mainly small Pacific countries, Caribbean islands, states in Central America and the Vatican. With its one-China doctrine, the communist leadership in Beijing does not allow any country to have relations with both the People’s Republic and Taiwan. Out of consideration for Beijing, Germany also has only one unofficial representation in Taipei.
Beijing threatens “reunification”
Beijing regards Taiwan, which is now liberal, as part of the People’s Republic and tries by all means to isolate it internationally. The 23 million Taiwanese, on the other hand, have long considered themselves independent. The conflict goes back to the civil war in China. At that time the Chinese national Kuomintang party was defeated and fled with its troops to Taiwan, while the communists founded the People’s Republic in 1949. To this day Beijing threatens to conquer Taiwan in order to achieve “reunification”.
The government in Managua was now following the Beijing line. Foreign Minister Denis Moncada announced that the government of the People’s Republic is the only legitimate China, which Managua’s new perspective also includes Taiwan. Nicaragua had already recognized Beijing in 1985, but switched back to Taipei in 1990. In Nicaragua, the increasingly authoritarian government of the former left revolutionary Ortega has been in power since 2007.
Since China-critical President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taiwan in 2016, Beijing has significantly increased the pressure on their diplomatic allies and wooed them with economic promises. Since then, Taiwan has lost eight partners. In 2017 and 2018, the Latin American states of Panama, Dominican Republic and El Salvador had already broken with Taiwan in favor of China – most recently also the Solomon Islands and Kiribati in the Pacific. The turn of the Solomon Islands in favor of Beijing, however, led to internal political tensions and serious unrest. A foreign office spokesman in Beijing welcomed the move to Nicaragua, which he described as an “important country” in Central America. “That is the right decision.” The fact that Taiwan is part of China “is a universally agreed norm of international relations”.