Nauru, a small state in Oceania, has severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and stopped recognizing its independence. On Saturday, Lai Ching-te was elected president in Taiwan, a candidate in favor of the island’s autonomy from China, which instead claims it as its province and has highly criticized the election. According to Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tien Chung-kwang, the timing of the Nauru government’s decision is a sign of China’s influence over the small ocean state, and said that Taiwan has also severed its ties with Nauru in response.
It is not the first time that Nauru has interrupted diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of China: it had done so in 2002, but then reversed the decision again in favor of Taiwan. Only 12 states in the world officially recognize Taiwan’s independence: Belize, Paraguay, Guatemala, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, eSwatini, Tuvalu and Vatican City.
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Taiwan was once a Chinese province: it became an autonomous state because it was the last territory controlled by the Chinese nationalist party (the Kuomintang, now in opposition) at the end of the Chinese civil war, in 1949 (the rest of China was instead controlled by Communist Party of China, which still governs it today). This is why Taiwan and China lay claim to each other’s territory.
Nauru is an island of 21 square kilometers in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, inhabited by 12 thousand people: it is the third smallest state in the world by surface area and the second by population (before the Principality of Monaco and Vatican City).
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