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Caribbean & Central America - July 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)
Panama follows Costa Rica; makes the switch to China
A decade after Costa Rica severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China, Panama’s government led by President Juan Carlos Varela has become the second country in Central America to follow suit, accepting its “One China” policy – that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras are all still aligned with Tapei which now has diplomatic relations with just 20 countries. Signalling a major victory for China, Panama’s switch was not a huge surprise: bilateral trade and investment cooperation has intensified in recent years, and China is the second largest customer of the Panama Canal, whose expansion was inaugurated a year ago with the transit of a container vessel of China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco), ‘Andronikos’. The move has fuelled speculation as to whether Panama’s neighbours will follow suit.
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