Nicaragua’s recognition of “one China” and the end of relations with Taiwan will in the short term prolong the life of that nation’s authoritarian government, expand opportunities for China’s strategic advance in Latin America, contribute to the destabilization of Asia and risk of war in that country, and will strengthen the dynamics of left-wing populism in Latin America, to the detriment of the United States.
The December 12, 2021 diplomatic move by Nicaragua’s Sandinista government to sever bilateral ties it had had with Taiwan since 1990 is likely to lead to a symbolic expansion in purchases of coffee, fruit and other traditional Nicaraguan exports from businessmen well connected to Ortega and his entourage, as well as a new loan from the Asian power for infrastructure projects and Chinese commercial activities in the country.
These short-term benefits, likely summarized in non-transparent memoranda of understanding to be signed when Daniel Ortega and his family travel to China to begin the new relationship, will provide benefits to Nicaraguan business elites and other key forces to stem the rise in discontent. against the growing authoritarianism, mismanagement and economic isolation of the Ortega government.
They will partially offset Nicaragua’s increasing loss of access to Western investors due to US and European sanctions, the deteriorating environment in the country, and the prospect of Nicaragua’s expulsion from CAFTA-DR (Central America-Dominican Republic-Free Trade Agreement). United States).
For China and its companies, Nicaragua’s turnaround will significantly expand its strategic commercial, political and other access to Central America, particularly if Xiomara Castro’s newly elected left-wing populist government in Honduras also changes its country’s relations with China, as she promised to do as a candidate.
The combination of these changes would leave Guatemala and Belize the only strongholds in Central America that still recognize Taiwan, allowing China to shift the focus of its diplomatic competition from the Western Hemisphere to the Caribbean.
With the three Gulf of Fonseca countries (El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) recognizing the People’s Republic of China, it would open up this area to synergies between Chinese infrastructure projects in the three nations, including between a new port complex developed by Chinese interests in La Unión, the Chinese participation in a new transoceanic corridor through Honduras that connects its access to the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific with San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés on the Atlantic, and connects the new commercial center with road access along the Pacific side of Nicaragua .
Such actions will reopen the prospect of a channel through Nicaragua, the legal basis of which has already been granted to Chinese developer Wang Jing and his company HKND. Indeed, while the commercial viability of such a channel remains doubtful, diplomatic recognition increases the likelihood that such a project will go ahead.
His main Nicaraguan partner, Laureano (son of Daniel Ortega), was the leader of the Nicaraguan delegation that met with his counterparts in Tianjin (China) for negotiations aimed at shifting the axis of Nicaraguan relations from Taiwan to China.
In November 2021, perhaps in anticipation of Nicaragua’s diplomatic shift, Chinese canal project leader Wang Jing reappeared to publicly advocate for the continuation of work, after having been out of the public eye for a year and a half.
The expansion of the Chinese and Russian presence in Latin America
In addition to trade opportunities, Nicaragua’s recognition provides China with new opportunities for cooperation on security and arms sales in a subregion from which it has long been excluded.
Left populist regimes such as Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, Ecuador under Rafael Correa, Bolivia under Evo Morales and Argentina under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner were the most important buyers of Chinese military material in Latin America.
Diplomatic relations with the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, with its former stockpiles of primarily Russian weaponry, create potential opportunities for Chinese arms companies such as Norinco and CATIC, as well as Chinese suppliers of surveillance and telecommunications systems that can help the Ortega government to better control your population.
In the longer term, the coincidence of recognition of China by El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua adds to the logic of the Gulf of Fonseca as the site of an eventual Chinese naval base, albeit likely within a decade or more.
In Asia, Nicaragua’s recent decision, and the prospect of Honduras also changing its relations, has reduced the number of countries diplomatically recognizing Taiwan to dangerously low levels.
Given the Xi Jinping administration’s desire to incorporate Taiwan into China before the end of its third term, and the growing manifestations of aggression against Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army and its Air Force, the dwindling number of Taiwan’s friends increases the temptation. Xi’s move against Taiwan as an internal affair, as he did with Hong Kong, potentially escalating a major war with the potential to extend beyond the region.
For the US and Latin America, Nicaragua’s decision creates an uncomfortable synergy between four Chinese-funded governments in the closest part of the Americas: the regime of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico, that of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. , that of Ortega in Nicaragua and possibly that of Xiomara Castro in Honduras.
In all cases, the option to expand commodity exports to China, loans for infrastructure projects and the entry of Chinese companies reduce US leverage.
For Nicaragua specifically, and possibly later for the future Castro government in Honduras, recognition from China and the associated influx of resources is also likely to encourage and create opportunities for Russia, which in recent years has supplied Ortega with T-72 tanks. , patrol boats, a docking station for its Glonass satellite constellation, and a regional police training facility staffed by the FSKN anti-drug agency.
It could also increase the viability of Russia’s Rosatom’s (State Nuclear Energy Company) unlikely commitment to build a reactor in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua’s decision, while only an isolated regime, is significant for what it represents for China and the Americas.
It is dangerous for what it suggests about the growing audacity and willingness to test the limits of what the country may perceive as the weakness or timidity of the Biden administration.
Column initially published on the Redcaem website.
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