Dig Deep Enough in Nicaragua, and You’ll Find China

Amid the fanfare of this May’s China-CELAC Summit, few took notice of China’s high-stake military and mining deals with Nicaragua.

Since the 2021 reestablishment of diplomatic ties, the Ortega-Murillo regime has quietly handed nearly 300,000 hectares of land – or 2.36 percent of Nicaragua’s national territory – to four mining companies affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.

None of these companies has a track record in Nicaragua. None is a known entity in China. None even has a website. But all share one common denominator: regime backing and a legal framework conveniently and coincidentally tailored to their advance.

It’s a model of state cooptation where minerals and silence are traded in exchange for prolonging a sanctioned regime. Moreover, China’s business dealings in Nicaragua demonstrate how the Ortega-Murillo regime has relaxed certain laws to allow China-linked companies to more freely operate in the country while mitigating Western pressure. Nicaragua depicts an emergent case study in how Chinese leverage unfolds across fragile governments in Latin America and the Global South.

Axis of Extraction

Nicaragua’s alignment with China reflects the Ortega-Murillo family’s calculated partnership grounded in authoritarian resilience. After severing ties with Taiwan and seizing its former embassy for Beijing in 2021, the Ortega-Murillo regime unlocked immediate access to free trade agreements and the Belt and Road initiative. Since then, bilateral cooperation has deepened, from journalist exchanges to megaproject plans, as well as a $1.4 billion trade deficit.

This alignment is a new pillar of the regime’s desperate survival strategy, where China acts as the primary benefactor. As increasing Western pressure and international watchdogs call out the regime’s actions, China provides capital and silence.

In return, Nicaragua has bent its legal and constitutional systems to accommodate opaque shell entities with no track record. This legal flexibility, paired with the regime’s consolidation of government, enables China to establish influence with minimal resistance or scrutiny.