What is the relationship between Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea?

In the past few days, the news that the Ambassador of Guinea-Bissau talked about the friendly relations between China and Guinea-Bissau just appeared in the media, and then the news of the military coup in Guinea's capital became a hot spot. Some netizens who are not familiar with African countries may be surprised. How many guineas are there?

In fact, in the world, there are four countries with "Guinea" in their names, namely Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea. So are the names of these four countries just similar or related to each other?

In fact, the names of these four countries all contain "Guinea", which does have a certain historical origin, but it has little to do with it. At present, these four countries have normal state-to-state relations.

Guinea is not an indigenous name.

"Guinea" was originally a geographical concept put forward by Europeans, which means "the area where black people live". It is the name given to sub-Saharan Africa by European colonists, including Portuguese, in the early days of European colonization. This area is roughly in West Africa, where Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea are now located. Later, the Portuguese went to Papua New Guinea in Oceania and found that the hair, skin (brown) and figure of the local people were similar to those of Africans in Guinea, so they called it "New Guinea".

Therefore, the word Guinea has nothing to do with the indigenous people's address to the local area, but the address used by European colonial explorers, and has been called this since then. In the wave of global colonial independence, after independence, these countries all adopted the name Guinea in their country names.

The geographical location is far away.

From the map of the world, we can see that Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea are countries in West Africa, while Papua New Guinea is a country in Oceania. Guinea and Guinea-Bissau are neighbors, but other countries are far away.

The official languages are different.

In addition, the official languages of these four countries are French in Guinea, Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau, Spanish in Equatorial Guinea and English in Papua New Guinea. This reflects the infighting during the period when European powers carved up colonies.

Several countries use different European languages as official languages. The reason is that Guinea was a colony of France in Africa before independence, which was formerly called French Guinea, while Guinea-Bissau was a colony of Portugal before independence, Equatorial Guinea was a colony of Spain before independence, and Papua New Guinea was under the jurisdiction of Australia for a long time after independence. Therefore, after independence, based on the actual situation, several countries chose to use the European language widely used by their nationals, especially political elites, as the official language.

China established diplomatic relations earlier.

These four countries established diplomatic relations with China shortly after their independence in 1960s and 1970s.

Guinea established diplomatic relations with China from 1959 to 10.04, and was the first sub-saharan African country to establish diplomatic relations with China. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, relations between the two countries have developed smoothly.

Guinea-Bissau and China established diplomatic relations on 65 March 2005. From 65438 to 0990, Guinea-Bissau established so-called "diplomatic relations" with Taiwan Province Province, and then China announced that it had broken diplomatic relations with Guinea-Bissau. 1On April 23rd, 1998, China resumed diplomatic relations with Guinea-Bissau.

Equatorial Guinea established diplomatic relations with China in June 5438+0970 and June 5438+10/5 respectively, and the relations between the two countries have been developing smoothly.

Papua New Guinea and China established diplomatic relations in June 1976 and June 65438+ 10/2, and the relations between the two countries have basically developed smoothly.