Nicaragua’s decision to cut ties with Taiwan was part of a deliberate move by the Chinese regime targeting the island’s diplomatic allies, following Beijing’s exclusion from the U.S.-led democracy summit, Taiwan’s foreign minister said on Dec. 14. The government of Nicaragua announced on Dec. 9 that it terminated “diplomatic relations” with Taipei and switched allegiance to Beijing, declaring that it recognizes “there is only one single China” in favor of the Chinese communist regime. The severing of ties has left the self-ruled island—which China claimed as its own—with 14 formal diplomatic allies, most of them in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Losing a diplomatic ally is a very painful thing for us,” Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters on Tuesday. He said the “greatest efforts” of the foreign ministry to maintain ties with the former ally were in vain. “When democratic countries were holding a democratic summit, China was excluded. …