(Tegucigalpa) Honduras will establish “official” relations with Beijing, President Xiomara Castro announced on Tuesday, to whom Taipei immediately asked not to make this “bad decision”.
“I instructed Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina to manage the opening of official relations with the People’s Republic of China,” Ms.me Castro on Twitter, without explicitly mentioning the future of relations with Taipei.
Communist China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, does not accept that countries can have diplomatic relations both with it and with Taipei. Any recognition of Beijing by a country leads de facto to the rupture between it and Taiwan.
“We ask Honduras to think carefully and not fall into the trap of China by making a bad decision that will damage the long-term friendship between Taiwan and Honduras”, reacted the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement. communicated.
Xiomara Castro, who took office in early 2022, announced before coming to power his intention to recognize Communist China “immediately”.
But Tegucigalpa later said that relations with Taiwan were continuing, after a visit by Taiwanese Vice President William Lai for the inauguration of Mr.me Castro.
M’s tweetme Castro “does not clarify what kind of relationship” Honduras wants to establish with Beijing, noted Honduran analyst Raul Pineda. “If it comes to diplomatic relations, it will lead to a break with Taiwan and a distancing from the United States,” he added.
“At the moment, China-US relations are very tense, and from this point of view it would be a very regrettable decision” by the government of Mr.me Castro, said this analyst.
Dams funded by Beijing
1er Last January, the head of Honduran diplomacy had met the Chinese vice-minister of Foreign Affairs Xie Feng, on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On February 2, Mr. Reina announced negotiations with China to build a hydroelectric dam, while denying that Tegucigalpa wanted to recognize Beijing diplomatically.
Beijing had already funded another dam in Honduras to the tune of $300 million, inaugurated in 2021 by then-President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Latin America has been an important diplomatic battleground between Beijing and Taipei since 1949, when the Communists took power in mainland China and the Nationalist government took refuge on the island of Taiwan.
Aligned with Washington, all Central American countries have for decades remained tied to Taiwan. But today, only Honduras, Guatemala and Belize maintain ties with the island. Costa Rica (in 2007), Panama (2017), El Salvador (2018) and Nicaragua (2021) broke with Taipei and recognized Beijing.
Only 14 countries in the world recognize Taiwan, including Paraguay, Haiti, the Vatican and several small island nations in the Caribbean and Pacific.