Managua’s diplomatic switch to Beijing ‘heartbreaking’: Taipei
Beijing, Dec 14 (EFE).- Nicaragua’s recent decision to sever diplomatic relations with Taipei in order to re-establish ties with China was “heartbreaking,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Tuesday.
The Central American country’s announcement last Thursday left Taipei with just 14 formal allies amid increasing threats from Beijing.
Taiwan has been governed autonomously since 1949, however Beijing considers the island a rebel province of the mainland, with which it vows reunification.
“It was heartbreaking for us to lose a diplomatic ally. We in the foreign ministry had all done our best to maintain the official relationship but to no avail,” he said, according to state media outlet Focus Taiwan.
Wu said the main reason for the switch of allegiance was the intensifying conflict between the between the United States-led democracy camp and the China-Russia-led authoritarian camp, and Washington’s sanctions on Nicaragua after the recent election in the country, which were widely denounced as illegitimate.
Managua’s announcement also coincided with the opening of the US-led Summit for Democracy, to which Taiwan was invited and China excluded.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry on Tuesday described last week’s Summit for Democracy as a “success.”
“Rep. [Hsiao Bi-khim] represented #Taiwan with aplomb, & joined @POTUS & other leaders of the free world in strategizing ways to strengthen democratic resilience & turn back the tide of authoritarianism,” the foreign ministry wrote on Twitter.
The summit, organized by the US and in which 100 countries were present virtually – with notable absences including China and Russia – ended Friday without concrete agreements and with the promise of calling a new meeting in 2022.
The forum concluded as it began, with a speech by the host in which US President Joe Biden insisted on the need to continue collaborating to strengthen democracies against threats such as disinformation, corruption and authoritarianism.
The summit did not sit well with Beijing (Taiwan is one of the big points of friction that it has with Washington), leading state media to launch an attack, assuring that China is also a democracy, ‘more extensive, genuine and effective’ than the US’. EFE
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