China-Nauru foreign ministers meet in Beijing to shore up shift in diplomatic allegiance away from Taiwan

Name: China, US offer competing security visions for Asia-Pacific at security forum
Uploaded: 2024-01-24T09:22:27.000Z
Duration: 3 min 45 s
Description: China, US offer competing security visions for Asia-Pacific at security forum

‘We look forward to the practical cooperation that’s going to happen between Nauru and China. The prospect is bright’: Nauru foreign minister Lionel Aingimea

Tuvalu, another Pacific island nation, may also review its diplomatic ties with Taiwan after election on Friday

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Nauru’s foreign minister Lionel Aingimea, left, shakes hands with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi after signing the joint communiqué on the resumption of diplomatic relations. Photo: AFP

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 5:22pm, 24 Jan 2024Updated: 6:08pm, 24 Jan 2024

Beijing hosted Nauru’s foreign minister on Wednesday as the two countries finalise official ties in another diplomatic upset for Taipei.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Lionel Aingimea, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Pacific island nation, held talks in Beijing and signed a joint communique saying the two countries had resumed diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Nauru will sever diplomatic relations with Taipei and “no longer develop official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan”, the communique said.

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China, US offer competing security visions for Asia-Pacific at security forum

“Although China and Nauru are geographically far apart and separated by vast oceans, the friendship between the two peoples has a long history,” Wang told the press on Wednesday morning.

Wang also said the “very small number of countries” that maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei “constitute a violation of China’s sovereignty”.

China’s foreign minister urged these countries to “stand with the international community”, adding that China was willing to develop relations with them on the basis of the one-China principle.

“We look forward to the practical cooperation that’s going to happen between Nauru and China. The prospect is bright,” Aingimea said at the press conference.