Honduras to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing

À DAY

Tegucigalpa | Honduras will establish diplomatic relations with Beijing, President Xiomara Castro announced on Tuesday, a move that should lead to the de facto severance of ties with Taiwan. 

“I gave instruction to Foreign Minister Eduardo Reina to manage the opening of official relations with the People's Republic of China,” Ms. Castro announced on Twitter, without expressly mentioning the future of relations with Taipei.

Ms. Castro, who took office in early 2022, announced before he came to power his intention to immediately recognize Beijing. But she seemed to reconsider her position after a visit, for her inauguration ceremony, of Taiwanese Vice-President William Lai.

On January 1, the head of Honduran diplomacy met with the Vice-Minister Chinese Foreign Minister Xie Feng, on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. And on February 2, Mr. Reina announced negotiations with China to build a hydroelectric dam.

Beijing had already financed another dam in Honduras to the tune of $300 million, inaugurated in 2021 by the then-president Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Honduras is currently one of the last 14 countries to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Communist China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, does not accept that countries can have diplomatic relations both with it and with this island.