Beijing: recognizing the one China principle is in Guatemala’s interest

The reunification of China is inevitable, and Guatemala’s recognition of the one-China principle responds to the vital interests of the Central American country, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, commenting on the visit of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to Taiwan.

Giammattei arrived in Taiwan on April 24 on an official visit and has already met with the island’s foreign minister.

“We have noticed that some Guatemalan politicians have recently stated in interviews that most countries in the world recognize Taiwan as part of China, and it is not sensible for Guatemala not to have diplomatic relations with China,” said Mao Ning.

China is Guatemala’s second-largest source of imports and the fifth-largest source of exports.

The diplomat recalled and affirmed that “the recognition of the principle of one China would respond to the vital interests of Guatemala and the aspirations of its people.”

She pointed out that separatist activity supporting Taiwan’s independence “goes against the historical trend” and that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party will not be able to stop “the historical trend of China’s inevitable reunification.”

Giammattei‘s visit will reportedly take place between April 24 and 26.

The official Guatemalan delegation, headed by its president, plans to meet with Taiwanese leaders and parliamentarians and present them with investment projects, and visit companies and factories “whose industrial model could be reproduced in Guatemala.”

Only 13 states, besides Guatemala, maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan: Belize, Haiti, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Paraguay, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland, Tuvalu, and the Vatican.

With other countries, Taipei maintains ties through its trade and cultural missions.

In recent years, many states have decided to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establish official relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), notably El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, Panama, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, and Nicaragua.

Last March, the Honduran Foreign Ministry declared that it was severing diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establishing diplomatic relations with China.

Official relations between China’s central government and its island province of Taiwan were severed in 1949 after the forces of the Nationalist Kuomintang Party, led by Chiang Kai-shek, suffered a defeat in the civil war against the Communist Party and moved to that archipelago.

Relations between Taiwan and mainland China were re-established only on a business and informal level in the late 1980s.

With information from Sputnik