Honduras prepares to establish 'official' relations with Beijing, Taipei worries

A general view of the city of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. © Eduardo Verdugo / AP

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Honduras will establish "official" relations with Beijing, announced this Wednesday, March 15, 2023 President Xiomara Castro, to whom Taipei immediately asked not to make this "bad decision".

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I have instructed Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina to manage the opening of official relations with the People's Republic of China Xiomara Castro announced on Twitter. She did not explicitly mention the future of relations with Taiwan, which Honduras is one of the last 14 countries to recognize diplomatically. Communist China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, does not accept that countries can have diplomatic relations with both China and Taipei. Any recognition of Beijing by a country leads de facto to a break between it and Taiwan.

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We ask Honduras to think carefully and not fall into China's trap by making a bad decision that would harm the long-term friendship between Taiwan and Honduras. " responded the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.

Xiomara Castro, who took office in early 2022, had announced before coming to power his intention to "immediately" recognize communist China. But Tegucigalpa later said relations with Taiwan were continuing, after a visit by Taiwanese Vice President William Lai for Castro's inauguration.

Castro's tweet "does not clarify what kind of relationship" Honduras wants to build with Beijing, Honduran analyst Raul Pineda said. "If it is diplomatic relations, it will lead to a break with Taiwan and distancing from the United States," he added. "At the moment, China-U.S. relations are very tense, and from that point of view, it would be a very regrettable decision" by Castro's government, the analyst said.

On February 2, Eduardo Reina announced negotiations with China to build a hydroelectric dam, while denying that Tegucigalpa wanted to diplomatically recognize Beijing. Beijing had already financed another dam in Honduras to the tune of $300 million, inaugurated in 2021 by then-President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

14 countries still recognize Taiwan

Aligned with Washington, all Central American countries remained tied to Taiwan for decades. But today, only Honduras, Guatemala and Belize have ties to the island. Costa Rica (in 2007), Panama (2017), El Salvador (2018) and Nicaragua (2021) broke with Taipei and recognized Beijing. The Dominican Republic did the same in 2018.

Only 14 countries in the world recognize Taiwan, including Paraguay, Haiti, the Vatican, Eswatini and seven small island nations in the Caribbean and Pacific. Taipei, however, has representative offices acting as "unofficial embassies" in many countries.

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• Honduras
• China
• Taiwan
• Diplomacy