Do not cut ties after losing allies

• By Juan Fernando Herrera Ramos

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Honduran Legislator Jorge Calix traveled to Taiwan last month, the first since Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic relations with Taipei three years ago.

During his visit, Calix met Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and participated in the Yuan Peng Class (遠朋班), an annual training program for Latin American leaders.

The significance of his visit raises a point that Taiwan should consider as China continues its efforts to amputate its remaining diplomatic relationships: When Taiwan loses an ally, why should decades of political relationships disappear with the embassy?

Calix’ visit also raises a more immediate question: How was it arranged? He did not arrive in Taiwan and accidentally discovered the program. The Yuan Peng program has been running for decades. Participation requires some channel through which prospective participants learn about the program and coordinate their attendance with Taiwanese authorities. Publicly available information does not establish who initiated the contact, but Calix’s participation demonstrates that channels between Taiwan and Honduran political figures remain despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations.

Panama provides an even more developed example.

In November last year, nine Panamanian lawmakers traveled to Taiwan, its first legislative delegation to Taiwan since it switched recognition to Beijing in 2017.

The visit attracted attention after Panama’s president said his administration had not authorized it, while the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused China’s embassy of interference after Chinese officials sought to discourage lawmakers from making the trip.

That exchange did not end parliamentary contact with Taiwan.

Less than a year later, Panama’s National Assembly established an interparliamentary friendship group with the Legislative Yuan. Forty-five of Panama’s 71 lawmakers joined, including National Assembly President Shirley Castanedas and both vice presidents. More than 20 Panamanian legislators also visited Taiwan in the preceding six months.

The timeline is important. A parliamentary delegation was followed by legislative exchanges and eventually the institutionalization of those relationships through a friendship group representing more than 60 percent of Panama’s National Assembly.

This does not prove that Taiwan deliberately designed every step of that process, but shows that parliamentary diplomacy can accomplish much, even after diplomatic recognition has been lost.

It is important to remember that Panama’s friendship is not an international anomaly.

Some of Taiwan’s most important parliamentary relationships exist in countries that do not formally recognize it. The UK has a British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group whose purpose includes promoting bilateral relations, trade and mutual understanding. The French Senate has a France-Taiwan Friendship Group, while the European Parliament maintains a Taiwan friendship group. Canada has a Canada-Taiwan Friendship Group and Lithuania has had a Lithuania-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group. Germany has parliamentary Taiwan groups, including one established this year in Berlin’s legislature. India has a Taiwan-India Parliamentary Friendship Association.

Japan offers perhaps the most striking example. Tokyo has not maintained diplomatic relations with Taipei since 1972, but the Japan-Taiwan Diet Members’ Consultative Council was formed just a year later and includes members of the Japanese Diet from across party lines. The organization traces its history back more than half a century and changed its name this year specifically to include “Taiwan.”

These examples show that formal diplomatic recognition and parliamentary relations are different things. A government can recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) while its legislators maintain extensive political relationships with Taiwan.

What makes Honduras and Panama particularly interesting is that they are former diplomatic allies. Taiwan does not need to build those relationships up from nothing.

Before Honduras switched recognition in 2023, Taiwanese diplomats had operated there for decades. Taiwan had diplomatic relations with Panama for more than 100 years before the 2017 switch. During those years, Taiwanese ambassadors and embassy personnel interacted not only with presidents and foreign ministers, but with legislators, political parties, local officials, universities, businesses and civic society.

Closing an embassy ends a nation’s official presence, but it does not erase the personal relationships accumulated by the diplomats who worked there.

Taiwan could employ former ambassadors and diplomats who served in former allied countries in roles that aim to preserve those networks, using their understanding of local political institutions, legislators and personal connections, things that their successors stationed elsewhere might not possess.

Those relationships could help introduce foreign lawmakers to members of the Legislative Yuan, facilitate participation in programs such as the Yuan Peng Class, identify opportunities for parliamentary delegations and maintain communication with political parties regardless of whether they are the ruling party or the opposition.

This does not mean asking governments to immediately reconsider diplomatic recognition of Taiwan; instead it would preserve relationships underneath the diplomatic level.

Calix illustrates the advantage of such an approach. He is not a member of Honduran President Nasry Asfura’s governing party. He is the caucus whip of the opposition Liberal Party. Taiwan’s ability to receive and engage an important opposition legislator suggests that parliamentary diplomacy can reach political actors, no matter which party controls the executive branch.

Diplomatic relationships are vulnerable to elections. A new president can reverse recognition, but parliamentary networks have the potential to be broader, incorporating politicians from governing and opposition parties simultaneously.

Panama shows what the next stage could look like. Individual visits can develop into recurring exchanges, and recurring exchanges can eventually become institutional relationships between legislatures.

Taiwan already possesses much of the infrastructure required for such a strategy. The Legislative Yuan maintains extensive parliamentary relationships overseas, while the Ministry of Foreign Affiars already operates programs that bring foreign leaders to Taiwan. Friendship groups provide institutional counterparts in countries with which Taiwan has no diplomatic relations.

The missing element is treating former diplomatic allies as a distinct category rather than considering the termination of diplomatic relations to be the end of Taiwan’s political presence.

Beijing’s diplomatic victories have been measured by the number of governments that abandon Taipei, but Panama and Honduras illustrate the limitations of measuring influence solely through diplomatic recognition. Beijing can persuade an executive government to recognize the PRC. However, that does not determine how legislators, political parties, universities, businesses or other institutions interact with Taiwan.

For Taiwan, this creates an opportunity to redefine what losing diplomatic recognition means.

An embassy closing should not mean that decades of accumulated relationships must close with it. Former ambassadors can preserve contacts. Legislators can build relationships with their counterparts. Training programs can introduce political leaders to Taiwan. Parliamentary delegations can reopen channels, and friendship groups can eventually institutionalize them.

Panama demonstrates how far that process can go. Calix’s visit to Taiwan suggests that in Honduras, it might already have begun.

Juan Fernando Herrera Ramos is a Honduran journalist based in Taipei. His work on Taiwan-China-Latin America relations has been published in Nikkei Asia, The Diplomat and the Taipei Times.