‘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.
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 Taiwan and “no longer develop official relations or official exchanges with Taiwan”, the communique said.
“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 a “very small number of countries” that maintained 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.
