Nicaragua has cut ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) switching diplomatic allegiance to the People’s Republic of China, which could herald the revival of Nicaragua’s transoceanic canal project.

In 2014, Chinese billionaire Wang Jingh had undertaken plans to build a second shipping lane connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific that would go trough Nicaragua. The project had the backing of the Nicaraguan authorities, but the United States immediately orchestrated a protest movement denouncing its environmental impact, although a second interoceanic crossing would considerably alleviate the traffic jam currently clogging up the Panama Canal. In the end, the 2018 financial crisis brought the project to a halt.

The United States artificially created Panama in 1903, during the Colombian Civil War, by fomenting, funding and organizing a so-called independence movement with the aim of completing the construction of the Panama Canal and ultimately taking control over it.

The Republic of Panama functioned as a puppet state at the service of the United States until 1968, when General Omar Torrijos succeeded in reclaiming his country’s sovereignty over the canal. Upon the latter’s death in a suspicious 1981 plane crash, General Manuel Noriega was placed in power only to be overthrown in 1989 during the United States invasion of his tiny country, killing at least 3,500 people.

Costa Rica (2007), Panama (2017), El Salvador (2018), Nicaragua (2021) and soon Honduras (2022) have severed their relations with Taiwan. Thereupon, China could relaunch the canal project as part of its Silk Roads.