PRC’s ally poaching helps TaiwanBy Fan Shih-ping 范世平The Straits Forum, the largest non-political platform between Taiwan and China, took place in China’s Fujian Province on Sunday last week. Days before the forum, on Thursday last week, Nicaragua announced that it had severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan. More importantly, Nicaragua cut diplomatic ties while Washington was hosting the two-day Summit for Democracy, to which Taiwan was invited, but China was not. Why is Nicaragua so important to China that it established diplomatic ties with Managua on the same day as the breakup with Taiwan? Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who formerly headed China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), must have been aware that the establishment of ties with Nicaragua would anger Taiwan.

Source: Taipei Times December 18, 2021 22:04 UTC