Nigeria snubs Taiwan, accepts Chinese investment

Nigeria expressed support for China’s “one China” policy on Wednesday and asked Taiwan to move its trade mission out of Abuja, the country’s capital.

The announcement came at a joint news conference by Nigeria and China’s foreign ministers, where Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi pledged an additional $40 billion investment in Nigeria. In building a closer relationship with China, Nigeria also is publicly shunning Taiwan, an island which China considers a territory even though it has its own government, currency, and legal system.

“Taiwan will stop enjoying any privileges because it is not a country that is recognized under international law and under the position we have taken internationally, we recognize the people of China,” Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffery Onyeama said at a news conference. The government wants Taiwan to move its trade mission to the commercial hub of Lagos.

Onyeama said the Chinese government does not oppose Nigeria’s trading with Taiwan as long as there is no formal contact between the two governments.

Taiwan has diplomatic relations with only two African countries, Burkina Faso and Swaziland. Sao Tome and Principe, an island off the west coast of Africa, retracted its diplomatic ties with Taiwan in December and accepted an investment offer from Beijing.

China has become one of Nigeria’s greatest infrastructure allies. Ongoing projects include railways, expressways, and a $14 million agricultural investment. China’s efforts span across Africa—its foreign minister on Thursday wrapped up a tour that took him to Zambia, Tanzania, and Madagascar, among other countries.

Taiwan rejected Nigeria’s stance as misleading and said the country was playing along with China’s political scheme to deny its sovereignty. Taiwan called for Nigeria to consider the countries’ trade relations; Nigeria also runs a trade office in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital.

“The ministry strongly protests and deplores the Nigerian government’s cooperation with China to carry out a politically motivated, unreasonable, peremptory, and brutal scheme,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Following Taiwan’s response, the Nigerian presidency on Thursday said reports that Nigeria cut ties with Taiwan are incorrect. Garba Shehu, the spokesman of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a statement that the two countries’ relationship has been at a level of trade representation, and would remain that way.