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China Lures Taiwan's Latin American Allies

Panamanian Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi toast after signing a joint statement on establishing diplomatic relations in June 2017 in Beijing.

The power struggle between China and the island of Taiwan is playing out in an unlikely region — Latin America.

The biggest bloc of Taiwan's few remaining world allies is in Central America and the Caribbean. But even that solidarity is splintering.

In August, El Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén went on national television and said the words Beijing has long worked hard around the globe to hear: "The government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate representation of all of China and Taiwan forms an inalienable part of the Chinese territory," said Sánchez Cerén.

With that, El Salvador severed decades of relations with Taiwan in favor of

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