The reason Nicaragua supposedly mattered back then was because of the life and death struggle with the sworn enemy, Moscow. The Sandinistas were regarded as a proxy for World Communism. In those days, China was considered to be our ally, a counterweight to Soviet global influence. In classical Orwellian fashion, however, every new historical epoch requires a reshuffling of friends and enemies, and hence Russia was a friend in the Second World War only to become the mortal enemy after the war ended. China was a friend during World War II, then an enemy, then a friend again.
China wants to buy and sell more goods.
The more we do so, the more we further China s stunning capitalist economic revolution, and benefit ourselves. Recall that the goal of the Kristol crowd in those days was a military invasion of Nicaragua. The conflict in that tiny country ended when the Sandinistas held an election, lost, and left office. To be plausible, a campaign for war must have something of an underlying rationale. That simply doesn t exist in the case of China.