On December 9, 2021 Ortega cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan after 31 years of recognition, and his sons signed an agreement renewing diplomatic recognition of the People´s Republic of China. This was somewhat surprising, given that on April 12, 2018 Ortega directed the National Assembly to declare June 16 “Day of Friendship between the Republic of Nicaragua and China Taiwan.” As recently as November 24, 2021 the Foreign Ministry accepted the credentials of the new ambassador of Taiwan to Nicaragua, and the outgoing ambassador was given the keys to the city of Managua. In a speech before the Army on Dec 10th Ortega made it clear that it was done to realign Nicaragua with a counterweight to US influence in the world. This article focuses on the communication that Wang Jing, the Chinese investor in the Canal project, sent to Ortega and Murillo on the cut in ties with Taiwan and renewal of relations with Continental China.
By Digital Edition, La Prensa, December 10, 2021
Nevertheless in the letter he does not mention what this new chapter of diplomatic relations with Pekin will mean for the Interoceanic canal, an aborted work so far.
Wang Jing, the mysterious Chinese investor who Laureano Ortega brought to Nicaragua with the promise of building a canal route, reappeared this time on Friday by sending a letter to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to congratulate them for the decision of breaking “supposed diplomatic relations” with Taiwan and adhering to the principle of “just one China”.
In the letter, nevertheless, he does not make mention of what this new chapter of diplomatic relations with Pekin will mean for the Interoceanic Canal, an aborted work so far, that even though it was announced to have been launched exactly seven years ago on December 14, 2014, has not made any progress.
“The principle of just one China is the general consensus of the international community that cannot be questioned. There is only one China in the world, the Government of the Popular Republic of China is the only legitimate Government that represents all China, and Taiwan forms an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” writes Wang to the pair of dictators, who this December 9 decided to turn their backs on Taipei, who for years they called “friend to the people of Nicaragua.”
For the controversial Chinaman, currently involved in a fraud and corruption scandal along with his companies, described the decision of Ortega as “correct, which is aligned with the general tendency and in harmony with the will, aspirations and well-being of the peoples of China and Nicaragua, and responds to the fundamental interests of the Nicaraguan people.”
In the letter Wang recalls the supposed legacy of the Communist Party of China in its struggle to unite Chinese territory, as well as its work to achieve “national independence, popular liberation, prosperity for the country and the happiness of the people.” This in spite of the fact that really China is nwell known as one of the nations with the most number of human rights violations. This year, for example, for the third consecutive year they are situated as the biggest jailer of journalists in the world, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CRJ, in English).
The businessman compared the struggle of the communist party to the revolution that Ortega and the Sandinista Front led. “In the decade of 1980, when the Sandinista Popular Revolution had just obtained national liberation, now in the struggle to defend the new government of the people, the Chinese people and the Nicaraguan people united to form a large, bloodied friendship in the face of the military offensives launched by the reactionary forces under the organization of the strongest military power in the world,” he said.
For Wang the return of the FSLN and Ortega to power in 2007 was “the correct path for national development,” in spite of the fact that Nicaragua continues being the second poorest nation in Latin America and the Caribbean after 15 years of Ortega administration.
One of the elements that the mysterious Chinaman points out in the letter is that Ortega put into the hands of the ministers of his cabinet the book in Spanish “Xi Jinping: governance in China” so that they might be indoctrinated and learn “how to serve the people of Nicaragua and how to lead the people along the path of independence and prosperity. I firmly believe that the two great nations will walk hand in hand along the correct path.”
In this new stage of relationship with Pekin, Wang states that he is convinced that both nations are going to move forward “elbow to elbow” and the coming obstacles will be overcome in order to transform “the historic bloodied friendship into the sweet and productive fruit of victory to the benefit of the people of Nicaragua and peoples of the world.”
Even though he made no clear reference about what happened with the canal project and how this new reality is going to catapult his promise, he just limited himself to say “Nicaragua is destined to become the most important axis of the ”Belt and Road” between the Atlantic and Pacific, an emerging center that promotes the economy, trade, technology and culture between east and west, a beacon that represents the great friendship between peoples and symbolizes the search for freedom, prosperity and civilization in the name of the peoples of the world, and will make an indelible contribution to the future development of human society.”
On September 27th the US daily newspaper the Epoch Times reported that Wang was involved in a gigantic $31 billion dollar scam and the concealment of enormous debts of the Xinwei Group. This resulted in him along with his businesses being expelled from the Shanghai Stock Market for the next ten years.
The scam, according to the article, had been constructed on the basis of the announcement in 2013 of the fact that a canal megaproject would be built in Nicaragua, which attracted the appetite of investors who allowed themselves to be taken by phantom price quotes made in the Shanghai Stock market.
Wang Jing is the mysterious Chinese businessman to whom the regime of Daniel Ortega gave a concession to the failed Interoceanic Canal project, and which the dictatorship sold to Nicaraguans as the easiest and quickest way to remove Nicaragua from the status of the second poorest nation of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The work of the Great Canal is valued to cost US$50 billion, and Ortega had promised that by this time more than a million Nicaraguans would have participated directly and indirectly in its construction, which would impact economic growth. Seven years later the economy has only known three years of recession and 1 year of recovery.
“The scams perpetrated by Wang created financial havoc and ruin for thousands of people in China and throughout the world,” indicated the US journalist, for whom the lies of the Chinese businessman and the canal project “also brought suffering to the Nicaraguan people.”