On Sunday, Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina García and Chinese Qin Gang met in Beijing to formalize the start of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Honduras is a small country in Central America and so far was one of the few that still officially recognized Taiwan, the island off the coast of mainland China that has governed itself since 1949, but which China claims as its own territory . The establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries implies that Honduras will no longer recognize Taiwan: in fact, China does not allow the states with which it has diplomatic relations to continue to maintain them also with Taiwan.
Left-leaning Honduran President Xiomara Castro promised she would strike deals with China during her election campaign in 2021. The Honduran government later announced that it had begun negotiations with China to finance the construction of a hydroelectric dam.
For decades some Latin American countries, including Honduras, had maintained ties with Taiwan, largely to signal their alignment with the United States, China’s main political and economic rival. In recent years, however, more and more countries have decided to forge ties with China, to the point that now only 13 states remain with which Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations: eSwatini, Vatican, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
