Honduras formally establishes diplomatic ties with China; Taiwan ties down to 13 – BBC News 中文

The government of Honduras issued a statement stating that the government of the Republic of Honduras recognizes that there is only one China in the world, and that the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. Starting today, the Honduras government has notified the severance of “diplomatic relations” with Taiwan, promising not to have any official relations or contacts with Taiwan.

The spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that China also highly appreciates Honduras’ recognition and commitment to abide by the “one China” principle, and its decision to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with mainland China.

Tsai Ing-wen released a video conversation, regretting that Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and emphasized that Taiwan will not engage in meaningless diplomatic competition for money with mainland China. She also pointed out that in the past few years, mainland China has continuously used various methods to suppress Taiwan’s international participation, escalated military invasion of Taiwan, and impacted regional peace and stability. the will of the world“.

When Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Liu announced the severance of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Hong Kong at the press conference, he said that Honduran President Fidel Castro had illusions about China’s lure, and he also used it to ask Taiwan for billions of dollars in huge economic aid, and compared the proposals of China and Taiwan. .

Taiwan’s opposition party, the Kuomintang, also issued a press release on the same day, stating that after the Tsai administration came to power, it “adopted a wrong and radical foreign policy”, resulting in the severance of diplomatic relations with nine countries for more than seven years. The morale of Taiwan continues to be weakened and hurt, which can be explained to the people of Taiwan without being blamed on external environmental factors.

After Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, there are still 13 countries with which Taiwan maintains diplomatic relations:

Ten of these are located in Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guatemala, Haiti, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nivi in ​​Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Sri Lanka;

There is also Swaziland in Africa, the Vatican in Europe, and Paraguay in South America.

Since Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen came to power in 2016, nine countries have severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, namely Sao Tome and Principe, Panama, Dominica, Burkina Faso, El Salvador, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Nicaragua, and Taiwan. Honduras.

At the press conference on March 26, Taiwan Foreign Minister Wu Zhaoxie also emphasized that for Paraguay, which is in the election stage, there is no problem with bilateral relations. On the one hand, the candidate of the ruling party also maintains very good relations with Taiwan; on the other hand, the candidate of the opposition party in Paraguay has proposed to review diplomatic relations, but the leader of the opposition party recently traveled to Taiwan, which shows that this is not the policy of the opposition party.

After Honduras severed diplomatic relations, the number of diplomatic relations with Taiwan has dropped to 13.

Tsai Ing-wen will set off to visit the Central American countries Guatemala and Belize in a few days, and will stop in the United States. She will stop in New York and Los Angeles on the outbound and return journeys respectively. She is expected to meet with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles later in the trip. Joseph Wu said he was “highly skeptical” that Honduras’ decision to sever diplomatic ties so close to Tsai Ing-wen’s overseas visit was China’s deliberate move behind it. The United States is paying close attention to the incident. According to the U.S. State Department, after the Honduras government made the decision to seek the establishment of diplomatic relations with China, the U.S. Biden administration sent Chris Dodd, the President’s special adviser on American affairs, to Honduras on March 17.

The State Department said that while Honduras’ actions were a sovereign decision, it must be noted that China “often made promises in exchange for diplomatic recognition that were never delivered”. The State Department also said in a statement that “regardless of Honduras’ decision, the United States will continue to deepen and expand our engagement with Taiwan.”

Reuters quoted Honduran Foreign Minister Reyna as saying that after talks with US representatives on March 20, the US expressed “respect” for Honduras’ decision to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and establish diplomatic ties with China.

Currently, China is Honduras’ second largest trading partner after the United States.

It is worth mentioning that Taiwan’s civil society did not arouse too much reaction in the multiple incidents of severance of diplomatic relations. Some netizens even ridiculed that “there is one less person to pay.” Other netizens suggested that in the future, Taiwan should devote all its diplomatic resources to countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the United States and Japan, but have influence on the world situation.

Liu Xiaopeng, director of the National Development Institute of Taiwan Chengchi University, also said before that the main condition for a country in public international law is to be at least recognized by other countries, which is what Taiwanese citizens must recognize. If the diplomatic relations are reduced to the minimum, “Taiwan is just a political entity just like Hong Kong and Macau.”

After the Republic of China was forced to withdraw from the United Nations in 1971, it also faced a “snow-bounce severance” and a wave of immigration. In the 1980s, there were only more than 20 diplomatic relations left. But Liu Xiaopeng said that in the 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan still had a good economic foundation. Although the atmosphere is the same today, the power balance between China and Taiwan is no longer the same. .