One less in the already meager list. The government of Honduras severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan on Saturday and immediately afterwards, this Sunday, established them with the People’s Republic of China in an official act in which the Central American country’s foreign minister, Eduardo Reina, and his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang , have signed a joint statement. Tegucigalpa “recognizes the existence of only one China in the world” and Beijing as its only legitimate government, the text said. “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” he adds.
The turning point is nothing new, but the confirmation of an unstoppable diplomatic course. The self-governing island, which Beijing claims as an inalienable part of its territory and which the United States supports militarily, has lost nine diplomatic allies since 2016, when incumbent President Tsai ing-Wen came to power at the helm of the Democratic Progressive Party sovereignist.
Taipei has lost formal allies since ceding its seat at the United Nations to Beijing in 1971. Currently, only 13 states, and none of them, maintain official ties with this enclave, which over the decades has also become one of the points of friction in the geopolitical theater, the epicenter of the clash between Washington and Beijing in the Asian region Peaceful.
The vast majority of countries have taken the same step – Spain did just 50 years ago – a necessary condition for maintaining official relations with communist China. Meanwhile, the capital cities often maintain unofficial ties with Taipei through trade offices.
The price of the break: 410 million euros according to Taiwan
As with many breakups, money has played a key role, the Taiwanese government has criticized. The cost of the rupture would be $442 million, according to the island’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, who assured this Sunday that he had received a letter from his Honduran counterpart in which that amount would be used to build a hydroelectric power station is required. a hospital and assume part of the national debt of the Latin American country. This type of practice “is like offering a bribe,” Wu rebuked in a gig collected by Taiwan’s official agency CNA.
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“We will not engage in a senseless contest of dollar diplomacy,” President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement, “deeply” regretting the break. “In recent years, China has persistently used all means to suppress Taiwan’s international involvement, intensify its military intimidation against Taiwan, and disrupt regional peace and stability,” he added.
In the communiqué signed between China and Honduras, Beijing “thanks” its new partner for the change of position. The text shows how both executive branches agree to establish “friendly” relations based on mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence.
During the previous tenure in Taiwan, led by President Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016) of the nationalist Kuomingtan Party, which was closest to Beijing, there was a period of rapprochement between China and the island that crystallized into one Historic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Now former President Ma is scheduled to land in China this week, in a trip that marks the first time a Taiwanese president or former president has landed in the People’s Republic since 1949. It was then the nationalist camp, led by Chiang Kai-shek, lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists and fled to the island of Taiwan. There they established a government which they called the Republic of China.
Meanwhile, the current president also plans to travel to the United States this week, as enclave leaders usually do: in transit to one of the few Latin American partners that continues to officially recognize Taiwan.
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