Honduras will not switch its diplomatic ties to China from Taiwan.
Before Sunday’s presidential elections, Xiomara Castro of the opposition Libre party had made a manifesto pledge to foster official relations with Beijing.
However, as soon as she clinched a landslide victory in the elections and her rival conceded, she backtracked on her promise of embracing China and ditching Taiwan.
Salvador Nasralla, who is set to be one of three Vice Presidents in the incoming government of Xiomara Castro, made it clear that Honduras will not debilitate ties with Taiwan.
“There are no relations with China, relations continue with Taiwan,” he added. “Our trade ally, our close ally, our historical ally is the United States. We don’t want to fight with the United States, the United States is our main trade ally.”
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Another senior leader in Castro’s upcoming administration confirmed that the “situation for ramping up relations with China doesn’t exist.”
So, what made Castro change her decision overnight?
Media reports suggest that Taiwan’s aggressive diplomacy, backed by the US, prompted Castro to relinquish ambitions of fostering the Honduras-China ties. Taiwan had warned Castro of China’s “Fleshy and False” promises, which often lead nations to the vicious circle of China’s debt-trap diplomacy.
Even Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen hurried to the frontier and congratulated Castro for her landslide victory on Wednesday. “I look forward to working with you to benefit the people of our countries & strengthen the longstanding Taiwan–Honduras partnership,” Ing-wen said on Twitter.
Castro retweeted the message with a terse reply: “Many thanks President Tsai Ing-wen.”
The USA’s back-door diplomacy:
The USA played well too. Given the gravity of the situation, Brian Nichols, the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, had made an unusually timed visit to Honduras early this week. This was enough for the Castro adviser, who penned the manifesto to change tunes.
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The advisor, immediately after the visit, said that no final decision has been made, easing the immediate concerns, and giving the US-Taiwan combine an opportunity to take care of the issue entirely.
China was, needless to say, unhappy with this development, which recently cried hoarsely while accusing the US of “arm-twisting” Honduras to accept Washington’s conditions.
Solomon Islands served as a lesson for Honduras:
The events unfolded in the Solomon Islands over the past two weeks also appear to have played a big part in making Honduras reverse its stance. Solomon Islands’ central government’s ‘switch’ of diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the PRC (People’s Republic of China) in 2019 has had enormous destabilising consequences. Now, these developments following the partisan politics supported by Beijing has turned the island nation into a no-go zone for China.
Economy and the region’s geopolitical games:
After the sinking of the Venezuelan economy, Honduras has witnessed a deep slump in its own economy as well. Establishing ties with China is always an easy way out of the economic woes for these tiny Caribbean nations.
Panama, for instance, switched ties to China in 2017, which soon got inundated with massive Chinese investments and projects. Taiwan has remained generous in its donations to these countries, but its largesse is no match for China’s. Without insufficient backing from the US, Taiwan kept losing its allies one after another.
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But the Honduras episode shows this trend is now changing. China, plagued with massive economic and foreign policy crisis, is fast losing its economic leverage over Taiwan. On the flip side, Taiwan’s diplomatic cachet is burgeoning at a blistering pace. Countries may soon find it more convenient and rationale to foster ties with Taiwan to remain in the good books of the QUAD or the democratic world.