At the end of February 2020, a smiling Denis Moncada Colindres, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua, posed for official photos from a tour of Taipei. Everything was laughter and gestures with the Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, to whom he guaranteed that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo were “happy” to defend the interests of the island. Last Tuesday, the senior Nicaraguan diplomat reneged on his words Y signed a message in which condemned “strongly” that the president of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, visit Taiwan, an act that, according to the regime, represents “a provocation”.
Hours after Moncada’s message, the Sandinista dictator supported his chancellor in defending the interests of the People’s Republic of China. “This step that they have taken today (Pelosi’s visit), which we have condemned, is an act that has no other qualification than an insane act by those who feel that the empire is collapsing,” Ortega said in an official act on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the Nicaraguan Air Force.
“It is an insane act typical of the Hitlers, who feel that they are the empire and then seek to strengthen their positions, launching themselves to challenge China, to invade,” the Sandinista leader stressed.
However, this strong and publicized rejection of Pelosi’s tour does not apply to other visits to Taiwan by high-ranking representatives of countries and organizations allied with Ortega, such as Dante Mossi Reyes, executive president of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), and Ralph GonsalvesPrime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Mossi participated this Wednesday, August 3, in a “Innovation, Sustainability and Cooperation Forum” held in Taipei, which coincided with the first year of the opening of a CABEI office in Taiwan, which aims to “underpin new business relationships and explore the benefits of investment and technology to improve the quality of life of Central Americans”the Bank said in a statement.
The San Vicente prime minister arrived on the island this Thursday, August 4, on an official visit. “The Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines calls on China to desist from military exercises designed to threaten or intimidate the people of Taiwan”said Gonsalves, who was Ortega’s star guest —and the only head of state— at the commemoration of the 43rd anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is among a handful of Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries that have established diplomatic relations with Taiwan despite China’s pushback.
The Chinese military exercises, referred to by Gonsalves — nicknamed by Murillo as “Uncle Ralph” — are in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit. The Beijing Government began military exercises, which have included the use of long-range missiles and have caused the closure of maritime and air space in six areas around the island, one of them about 20 kilometers from the coast of Kaohsiung, the main city in southern Taiwan.
“Opportunism” of the regime
For economist Enrique Sáenz, Ortega’s criticism of Pelosi’s visit “shame” and they are a sample of “opportunism” of the regime.
“They spent 15 years brushing off (fawning over) Taiwan while being milked. Now they appear in a colossal servile slapstick with airs of global potential ‘defending’ China of the ‘imperialist provocation”commented.
The rupture of the Nicaraguan regime with Taiwan, on December 9, 2021, was surprising because the island was one of its main cooperators and because of the speed with which it recognized the People’s Republic of China as “only legitimate government”.
the president of taiwan He was in Nicaragua for Ortega’s third presidential inauguration, in January 2017. By then, the dictator was complacent with the island’s government and even committed to the cause of its independence.
“We remain committed to that battle, a just battle, based on principles, so that the people of Taiwan continue to join international organizations attached to the United Nations, humanitarian organizations… In such a way that we continue to accompany them in that fight to win more and more spaces for its people, for its government in international organizations,” Ortega told the president at the time.
