BEIJING: China welcomed on Wednesday the latest remarks by Honduran President Xiomara Castro, who said her country is seeking to establish diplomatic relations with China. Some experts believe that with Central American countries enjoying increasing dividends due to their cooperation with China, it is just a matter of time before the remaining countries sever “diplomatic ties” with the Taiwan island.
In response to this, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on Wednesday that 181 countries around the world have established diplomatic relations with China on the basis of the one-China principle, which fully proved that establishing diplomatic relations with China is a correct general historical and political trend.
“On the basis of the one-China principle, China is willing to develop amicable and cooperative relationships with all countries around the world, including Honduras,” Wang said.
Castro said in her Twitter account that she instructed Honduran Foreign Affairs Minister Eduardo Reina to undertake the opening of official relations with China, as a sign of her determination to expand frontiers freely in concert with the nations of the world. It was not the first time that the Honduras leader has expressed such intention, as Castro said during her presidential campaign in 2021 that she would seek diplomatic relations with China if she was elected, but her government backtracked on those comments after she took the office, according to media reports.
If the Central American country establishes diplomatic ties with China, it would also serve as a heavy blow to the island of Taiwan, some experts said, especially after Nicaragua and China resumed diplomatic relations in December 2021. Nicaragua was the eighth country that the island of Taiwan has lost relations with after the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen became the Taiwan regional leader in 2016.
“Castro made the commitment during her presidential campaign, but then the US exerted much pressure on the Honduran government, which might have made her government backtrack on those words,” Jiang Shixue, a professor with the Center for Latin American Studies at Shanghai University, told the Global Times on Wednesday. “But now it seems that the Honduras government has withstood the pressure.”
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
