Taiwan warns Honduras after opening relations with China

Honduras trades Taiwan for China. The Government of Xiomara Castro announced that it will establish diplomatic relations with the Asian giant.

This is a decision with which Tegucigalpa distances itself from the territory with which it has maintained diplomatic ties for 81 years.

Due to its “one China” policy, Beijing prevents the world’s governments from maintaining diplomatic relations simultaneously with their country and Taiwan, an island that functions autonomously with its own Government and Army, but which the Chinese Administration claims as a of their provinces.

“I have instructed Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina to manage the opening of official relations with the People’s Republic of China, as a sign of my determination to comply with the Government Plan and expand the borders freely in concert with the nations of the world,” he said. the president on Tuesday, March 14 through her Twitter account.

The reason? The Castro Administration is targeting new economic allies, while ambitious Chinese investments are knocking on the doors of different regions where it seeks to expand his influence.

Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina indicated this Wednesday, March 15, that the decision is due to “pragmatism, not ideology.”

In statements to local television, Reina assured that her country is “up to its neck” with financial problems and debts. Among others, she owes Taiwan around 600 million dollars, so that situation partly motivated the measure.

Since her campaign for the Presidency, Xiomara Castro had already raised the idea of ​​cutting ties with Taiwan to open them with China. However, in 2022 he stated that he hoped to maintain relations with the island.

“We need investment, cooperation and Honduras needs to be aggressive,” Reina reiterated, adding that her country intends to maintain trade relations with Taipei, while seeking to strengthen alliances with Brazil, Mexico and the United States, among others.

But the Tegucigalpa decision leaves Taiwan with only a handful of diplomatic allies. Until now the island has only been recognized as an independent nation by 14 governments: Paraguay, Guatemala, Belize, Haiti, Saint Kitts and NevisSaint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Vatican City, Eswatini, Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Honduras, so the number of countries that recognize the territory is reduced to 13.

The new measure is likely to put more pressure on Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to strengthen ties and seek new allies ahead of her visit to the United States and Central America, scheduled for early April.

Taiwan alerts Honduras after its diplomatic turn

Shortly after learning of the Castro Administration’s decision, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it expressed that it maintains its firm desire to continue being a “sincere and trustworthy” partner for Honduras and that it remains open to continuing relations. bilateral.

“We ask Honduras to consider carefully and not fall into China’s trap and make the wrong decision to damage the longstanding friendship between Taiwan and Honduras,” he stressed.

Likewise, Taipei insisted on alerting the Central American nation against Beijing.

“Please be careful not to fall into China’s trap (…) China’s relationship-building with Honduras only has the purpose of compressing the international space for Taiwan and has no sincere intention to cooperate with Honduras for the welfare of his people,” he said.

In the midst of this panorama, in the last hours the Taiwanese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Yui, summoned the Honduran ambassador in Taipei, Harold Burgos, to convey his concerns on this matter.

What about between Taiwan and China?

The two territories sustain more than seven decades of confrontation.

Separated by a strait, conflicting ideologies and a historic conflict, China and Taiwan have coexisted amid tensions as the island has an undefined status.

There is not even a consensus on its name, since it is also called the Republic of China. Both claim to be the “authentic China”.

To understand the current differences, it is necessary to remember that, in 1945, after the defeat of Japan, which had seized the island from the Chinese dynasty 50 years earlier, China recovered Taiwanese territory.

However, in 1949, the government of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, was defeated in a bloody civil war on the mainland by the Army of the Communist Party.

Then the Chinese communists led by Mao Zedong, head of the Communist Party of China, founded the People’s Republic of China, with Beijing as its capital.

While Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist Party, went into exile in Taiwan along with around 1.2 million Chinese, most of them military. They managed to establish themselves on the island as their own territory, after successfully prevailing in a brief raid by communist troops.

Since then, two sides have historically claimed to be the legitimate rulers of all the Asian giant’s territories, including Taiwan. There is no international agreement on the status of the island that has functioned as an independent.

Now, amid a growing push by China to counter America’s economic, military, political and diplomatic might in the world, Beijing is propagating its dominance.

Among its notable actions, Beijing expands its presence in the Indo-Pacific, carries out naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Oman together with Russia and Iran, emerges as a historic mediator in the Middle East after the pact reached this week between Tehran and Saudi Arabia, filling gaps that Washington leaves in that region and spreads its commercial and diplomatic influence globally, including Latin America.

With Reuters and local media