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Taiwan announced this Wednesday the withdrawal of its ambassador in Tegucigalpa after expressing “deep dissatisfaction” with the Honduran foreign minister’s trip to China. Honduras would become the fifth Latin American country to break relations with the island, in favor of Beijing.
The Honduran Foreign Minister, Eduardo Enrique Reina, traveled to Beijing to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese government, the Honduran government reported this Wednesday, March 22.
Shortly later that same day, Taiwan’s foreign minister announced the withdrawal of its ambassador from Tegucigalpa and expressed his “deep dissatisfaction with a visit that seriously hurts the feelings of the Taiwanese people.”
He recommended to the government of Xiomara Castro to be “caution with the false promises of China” and regretted that “a traditional friendship of more than 80 years” was despised.
Economic reasons
The Honduran president announced on Twitter on March 15 that the country was going to promote the opening of “official” relations with Beijing.
Foreign Minister Reina had announced negotiations with China to build a hydroelectric dam. “What we are looking for, in this vision of creating more energy capacities for the country, is for China to finance Patuca II”, he had said then without mentioning new diplomatic relations with China.
With 74% of its population living in poverty, Honduras asks Taipei for greater economic cooperation. According to Reina, this request for “more important relations” did not have a satisfactory response.
“irrational requests”
The Taiwanese deputies requested information from the government about an alleged request for aid of 2.5 billion dollars by Honduras, by way of restructuring the debt that the country has with Taiwan. The Taiwanese foreign minister did not confirm but assured that he did not plan to accept “irrational requests”.
No country can maintain simultaneous official diplomatic ties with China and Taiwan. Beijing has claimed sovereignty over the independent island for more than 70 years.
After Costa Rica in 2007, Panama in 2017, El Salvador in 2018 and Nicaragua in 2021, Honduras became the fifth country to break diplomatic ties with Taipei to turn to Beijing.
