Staff Writer
Chinese official media said that Honduras inaugurated an embassy in Beijing on Sunday, months after the Central American country severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in order to forge ties with China.
According to China’s official CCTV, both the Honduran and Chinese foreign ministers, Enrique Reina and Qin Gang, attended the embassy’s opening on Sunday. According to the article, Honduras would expand its staff and still need to decide on the embassy’s final location.
According to a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry, Qin promised that China would create a new model of “friendly cooperation” between nations with various systems and sizes with Honduras.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s six-day trip to China served as a symbol of the two countries’ growing diplomatic ties.
In March, Honduras formalized its relations with China, becoming the most recent nation to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Chinese officials forbid their diplomatic allies from maintaining formal links with Taipei because Beijing views Taiwan, which is self-governed, as a renegade province that should be retaken by force if necessary.
Additionally, Beijing’s military threats to the island are growing. Its defense ministry said on Sunday that 10 Chinese airplanes had flown over the unofficial border that was once implicitly acknowledged by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan retaliated by deploying planes, ships, and land-based missile systems. On Friday, Castro made her first trip since the two countries’ relations were established.
She visited the New Development Bank’s headquarters while she was in Shanghai. The BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—created the bank. Castro’s office announced on Saturday that Honduras had asked to be admitted to the bank.
Prior to landing in Beijing on Saturday night, the president also paid a visit to a research facility for the tech giant Huawei, according to the official Chinese publication Global Times.
In the midst of heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington, especially China’s growing assertiveness toward Taiwan, the connections established in March represented a diplomatic victory for China. Additionally, it indicated China’s expanding sway in Latin America.
Since their separation due to civil war in 1949, China and Taiwan have been engaged in a conflict for diplomatic recognition, with Beijing spending billions to advance its “one China” policy.
