“China expresses appreciation of this, and welcomes São Tomé back onto the correct path of the ‘one China’ principle,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement (link in Chinese), adding the principle is China’s “core interest” and is associated with “over 1.3 billion Chinese people’s feelings.”

Taiwan, a self-governing island that has held democratic elections for decades, has long been elbowed out of the international community because Beijing views it as a breakaway province since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
São Tomé and Príncipe breaks relations with the island country of Taiwan.