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 China |  El Salvador |
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The People's Republic of China and Republic of El Salvador have maintained diplomatic relations since 2018. China maintains an embassy in San Salvador and El Salvador maintains an embassy in Beijing.
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China | El Salvador |
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The People's Republic of China and Republic of El Salvador have maintained diplomatic relations since 2018. China maintains an embassy in San Salvador and El Salvador maintains an embassy in Beijing.
Diplomatic ties between China and El Salvador were first established in 1933 when the Nationalist government held control of mainland China while Taiwan was part of the Empire of Japan. [1] El Salvador recognized the People's Republic of China on August 21, 2018. [2] China's State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with El Salvador Foreign Minister Carlos Castaneda. They signed a joint communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations, deciding to recognize each other and establish diplomatic relations at an ambassadorial level from the date of the communique's signing. [2] [3] The government of El Salvador severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2018 during the administration of Salvador Sánchez Cerén under the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. [4] [5]
China exported US$1.5 billion of goods to El Salvador and imported US$105 million in 2019. The major commodities exported by China to El Salvador are machinery, textiles, plastic and rubbers, and various miscellaneous items. The major commodities that El Salvador exports to China are electrical capacitors, raw sugar, and coffee. Between 1995 and 2019, exports from El Salvador to China have increased at an annualized rate of 14.7%, while exports from China to El Salvador have increased at an annualized rate of 16.6%. [6]
In 2018, Asia Pacific Xuanhao (APX), a Chinese state-owned company with links to the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police, announced a plan to lease land within and around the port at La Unión, particularly islands in the Gulf of Fonseca. [7] [8] [9] The purpose of the lease remained undisclosed. [7] [10] However, some sources stated that it was to "build an electronic network to monitor communications and satellite movements in the hemisphere and particularly those of the United States." [11] Salvadorean lawmakers passed a measure to prohibit the purchase of islands by foreigners in response. [9] In 2021, the United States designated local officials assisting in the attempt to purchase the islands "corrupt and undemocratic actors" for acting as "agents of the People’s Republic of China in exchange for personal benefit." [12]
Upon Nayib Bukele's visit to China in 2019, he had signed a series of MoUs with Xi Jinping, in which China would promise El Salvador a total of US$500 million in development projects. These projects include a new national football stadium, a new US$40 million national library, a tourist pier in La Libertad and Ilopango, and US$200 million on the "Surf City" project, thereby involving El Salvador in China's Belt and Road Initiative. [7] [13] [14]
Nayib Bukele announced on Twitter that a cooperation project granted by the People's Republic of China will have US$54 million new national library be built in El Salvador. [15] The Salvadoran President later announced on December 30, 2021, that the 50,000-capacity Estadio Nacional de El Salvador will be built to replace Estadio Cuscatlán as El Salvador's national football stadium, at a cost of US$500 million, in collaboration with China. [16] [17] [18]
In 2019, China offered El Salvador around US$150 million in social projects and 3,000 tons of rice to thousands of Salvadorian victims to droughts. [19]
The COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador saw vaccine diplomacy increase between China and El Salvador. El Salvador received from China 150,000 vaccine doses of the CoronaVac vaccine donated by China, on top of 2 million Sinovac vaccines that the Central American nation had purchased. [20]
In November 2019, El Salvador permitted the opening of its first Confucius Institute at the University of El Salvador. [7]
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2024 was estimated to be 6 million according to a government census.
Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who has been the 81st president of El Salvador since 1 June 2019. As a member of the Nuevas Ideas political party, Bukele is the first Salvadoran president since 1989 who was not elected as a candidate of one of the country's two major political parties: the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) or the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), of which Bukele had previously been a member.
Presidential elections were held in El Salvador on 3 February 2019, with Salvadorans electing the president and vice president for a five-year term from 2019 to 2024.
Legislative elections were held in El Salvador on 18 February 2021. Salvadorans elected all 84 deputies of the Legislative Assembly, all 262 mayors of municipal councils of the country's municipalities, and all 20 of El Salvador's deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).
Nuevas Ideas is the ruling political party of El Salvador. The party was founded on 25 October 2017 by Nayib Bukele, the then-mayor of San Salvador, and was registered by the Supreme Electoral Court on 21 August 2018. The party's current president is Xavier Zablah Bukele, a cousin of Bukele who has served since March 2020.
Gabriela Roberta Rodríguez de Bukele is a Salvadoran educator, prenatal psychologist and the current First Lady of El Salvador, as the wife of the 43rd President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. She is also a professional ballet dancer and is part of the dance company Fundación Ballet de El Salvador.
The COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached El Salvador on 18 March 2020. As of 19 September 2021, El Salvador reported 102,024 cases, 3,114 deaths, and 84,981 recoveries. As of that date El Salvador had arrested a total of 2,424 people for violating quarantine orders, and 1,268,090 people had been tested for the virus. On 31 March 2020, the first COVID-19 death in El Salvador was confirmed.
René Francis Merino Monroy is a Salvadoran military officer who currently serves as the Minister of National Defense. He was appointed to the position by President Nayib Bukele in June 2019, becoming the first officer from the Salvadoran Navy to serve as minister of defense.
Ernesto Alfredo Castro Aldana is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who currently serves as the president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador. Castro previously served as a secretary and private advisor to Nayib Bukele from 2012 to 2020 when he was elected as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from San Salvador in the 2021 legislative election.
El Salvador became the first country in the world to use bitcoin as legal tender, after having been adopted as such by the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador in 2021. It has been promoted by Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who claimed that it would improve the economy by making banking easier for Salvadorans, and that it would encourage foreign investment. In 2022, more Salvadorians had Bitcoin Lightning wallets than bank accounts. In 2023, Bukele has credited this change to fueling the increase in tourism to El Salvador by 95%. The adoption has been criticized both internationally and within El Salvador, due to the volatility of Bitcoin, its environmental impact, and lack of transparency regarding the government's fiscal policy.
General elections were held in El Salvador in February and March 2024. In the first round on 4 February, voters elected the president, vice president, and all 60 deputies of the Legislative Assembly. In the second round on 3 March, voters elected mayors and municipal councils for all 44 of the country's municipalities and all 20 of El Salvador's deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN).
The National Stadium of El Salvador is a 50,000-seat multi-purpose stadium under construction in Antiguo Cuscatlán, El Salvador intended as a replacement for the El Salvador national football team's current stadium, Estadio Cuscatlán. The stadium is being built on the site of the former Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School. The construction of the US$500 million stadium began on 8 September 2022. It will be the second modern sport and event arena to be built in Central America.
The Salvadoran gang crackdown, known in El Salvador as the State of Exception or the War Against the Gangs, began on 27 March 2022 in response to a series of homicides committed by criminal gangs between 25 and 27 March 2022 which killed 87 people. After the killings, the Salvadoran government declared a state of emergency that suspended several constitutional rights and enabled the government to launch mass arrests of suspected gang members. The crackdown and state of emergency have since been extended 32 times as of 5 November 2024.
Opinion polling has been conducted in El Salvador since September 2019, three months after Nayib Bukele took office as the president of El Salvador on 1 June 2019, to gauge public opinion of Bukele and his government. Despite negative reception from outside of El Salvador, domestically, Bukele is considered to be one of the most popular presidents in Salvadoran history as his approval ratings generally hover around 90 percent.
The following tables list the results of opinion polls for the presidential, legislative, and municipal elections conducted since October 2022 in reverse chronological order for the 2024 Salvadoran general election. The party with the highest percentage is listed in bold and displayed with its background shaded, and the party with the second highest percentage is listed in bold. The lead column shows the percentage between the parties with the first and second highest percentages. For legislative and municipal election polls, projected seat counts, if available, are listed below the percentage.
The Terrorism Confinement Center is a maximum security prison located in Tecoluca, El Salvador. The prison was built in late 2022 amidst a large-scale gang crackdown in El Salvador and was opened by the Salvadoran government in January 2023.
Juan Manuel de Jesús Flores Cornejo, nicknamed "El Chino", is a Salvadoran politician who has served as the secretary-general of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) since 2024. Flores served as the mayor of Quezaltepeque from 2003 to 2012 and then later as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from La Libertad from 2012 to 2021. He was the presidential candidate for the FMLN in the 2024 general election with running mate was Werner Marroquín. He lost in a landslide to incumbent President Nayib Bukele, accumulating only 6.40 percent of the vote. Flores supports El Salvador further strengthening relations with the People's Republic of China.
Karim Alberto Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran businessman and politician. He is a younger brother of and was a presidential advisor to Nayib Bukele, the current president of El Salvador. Bukele has previously worked as Nayib's campaign manager during his 2015 and 2019 electoral campaigns as well as the campaign manager for the Nuevas Ideas political party in 2021. In late-2023, Bukele was considered a likely candidate to succeed Nayib as acting president in the event that he resigned ahead of the 2024 general election, however, Bukele denied that he would succeed Nayib.
Ibrajim Antonio Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran businessman. He is a younger brother of and advisor to Nayib Bukele, the incumbent president of El Salvador.
The special zone also would give China a valuable perch to expand its military and intelligence capabilities in Washington's vicinity, according to American officials...
The common denominator in both cases is Chinese businessman Bo Yang, who bought the island in November 2019...
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