EXPLAINER: Why did China woo away Nicaragua from Taiwan?

BEIJING (AP) — Nicaragua’s decision to sever diplomatic links with Taiwan and recognize China leaves the self-governing island democracy with just 14 diplomatic allies. Most are small, largely poor nations in the Western Pacific, the Caribbean and Latin America, the one exception being the Vatican. At the same time, Taiwan enjoys robust unofficial ties with the United States and dozens of other nations, many of which maintain de facto embassies in each other’s capitals. Yet, the loss of formal diplomatic allies further constrains the Taiwanese leadership’s ability to make state visits abroad and feeds into Beijing’s narrative that Taiwan is losing the diplomatic battle and will eventually be forced to accept the inevitable outcome of political union with the People’s Republic of China.