(Bloomberg) — Nicaragua cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognized Beijing, the first country to do so in more than two years, leaving the democratically run island with a diminishing number of diplomatic partners.
“The government of the Republic of Nicaragua recognizes that there is only one, single China in the world,” Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said in a statement, according to state-run newspaper El 19. “The People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government that represents all of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.”
The Central American nation’s announcement marks the first defection of a Taiwanese diplomatic ally to Beijing since the Pacific Island of Kiribati switched ties in September 2019. Taipei now has full official diplomatic relations with 14 countries, mostly around the Caribbean.
Government officials from Nicaragua and China held talks in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin as the decision was announced, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. “Nicaragua is an important country in Central America,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday. “This is the right choice that is in line with the global trend and has people’s support. China highly appreciates this decision.”
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and makes severing all diplomatic ties with Taipei a precondition for recognition from Beijing. Taiwan, for its part, asserts it’s a de facto sovereign nation separate from the People’s Republic.
Nicaragua’s decision comes on the day Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang was set to address President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy, which has virtually gathered over 100 democratic governments to fight authoritarianism. China was not invited and its propaganda organs have gone into overdrive to discredit the event and claim the Communist Party operates a superior democracy.
Taiwan reciprocated Nicaragua’s move Friday, severing formal relations with the country “to protect national dignity” and expressing its regret at the loss of one of its few remaining official diplomatic allies.
“Taiwan has always been a loyal and reliable friend of Nicaragua,” Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We profoundly regret that the government of President Ortega has disregarded this longstanding friendship between the people of Nicaragua and Taiwan.”
Cutting Ties
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has switched sides before. He cut ties with Taipei the first time he was president in 1985, only for his successor, Violeta Chamorro, to restore them in 1990. Since Ortega returned to office in 2007 he has been asking for aid from Taiwan to maintain the status quo.
The government of the Republic of China, as Taiwan is known, fled to Taipei after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communist Party and subsequently fought a decades-long diplomatic battle to be recognized as the sole legitimate government of all of China.
While Taiwan’s government no longer claims to represent the whole of the mainland, it still clings to its formal allies as a way to legitimize its status as a state separate from the People’s Republic.
Nicaragua is the ninth country to cut ties with Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016, ending a tentative diplomatic truce between Taipei and Beijing. Unlike her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai has refused to endorse the stance that Taiwan is part of China.
While the U.S. doesn’t have official ties with Taiwan, it’s the island’s most powerful backer in its quest to prevent it being forced into unification with China. After Beijing managed to persuade eight countries to recognize it in the first two years after Tsai took power, the U.S. State Department stepped in to stem the flow of defections. Since Kiribati’s switch in 2019, U.S. officials have campaigned on Taiwan’s behalf to stop countries from cutting ties with Taipei.
State Department spokesman Ned Price questioned the legitimacy of the Ortega government to make such a move, saying it was clinging to power through a “sham election” last month that denied it of a genuine mandate.
“This deprives Nicaragua’s people of a steadfast partner in its democratic and economic growth,” he said in a statement. “We encourage all countries that value democratic institutions, transparency, the rule of law, and promoting economic prosperity for their citizens to expand engagement with Taiwan.”
Increasingly Isolated
Ortega has grown increasingly isolated on the international stage in recent years. His government last month said it would withdraw from the Organization of American States, following criticism of its presidential election.
Twenty-five OAS member nations this week voted to invoke the organization’s democratic charter over Nicaragua, which is used to react to an interruption of constitutional democracy in a member state.
The U.S. and the European Union denounced last month’s election as a sham after seven opposition candidates were jailed or placed under house arrest, and international monitors were barred. Security forces detained politicians, journalists and civil society leaders under a draconian “anti-treason” law passed last year.
Honduras’s President-elect Xiomara Castro has floated the idea of switching to Beijing, though advisers have said this isn’t a done deal and local business groups have expressed concerns over the idea, which need to be taken into account.
(Updates throughout.)
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