Honduras has been invited to participate as the Guest Country of Honor in the 6th annual China International Import Expo (CIIE) which runs from Nov. 5-10 in Shanghai. This is no small thing. The Central American country is one of the poorest countries in the world, whose desire to develop has been ignored, if not worse, by the most developed country near it, the United States. China is stepping up to help Honduras leave poverty behind.
China and Honduras established diplomatic relations just this past March. Rodolfo Pastor, Secretary of State for the President’s Office, who is heading the Honduran delegation to the CIIE, told Xinhua news before leaving, that Honduras agrees with China that global trade should be “an engine for development and promoting the well-being of the world at large,” instead of a source of conflict and unilateral measures.
More than expanded trade and tourism is on the table. Pastor reported that an office exclusively dedicated to studying possible Chinese investment in Honduran infrastructure, such as building highways, railways and dams, and cooperating on developing energy. The biggest project on the table is the Honduran government’s cross-Isthmus “dry canal” project, connecting Honduran ports on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by building a 300-km railway. The $20 billion project could transform Honduras into a world-class logistical, transportation, and potentially manufacturing center.
China’s own transformation over the last few decades excites Hondurans. Pastor told Xinhua that “never before in the history of mankind has a single country been able to build on the scale that China has done.” And it has used that demonstrated capability “not only to build structures, but it also promotes the welfare of the population, and that is how China itself has managed to promote its economy, its development and to lift millions of human beings out of poverty and provide welfare for them, which is ultimately the fundamental objective of any state.”
Colombia has its own proposal for a cross-Colombia railway to connect its Pacific and Atlantic ports, which President Gustavo Petro presented to China’s giant China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. and its CRCC, during a three-day visit to China Oct. 24-26. Colombia is divided into three by two great mountain ranges, and EIR and LaRouche’s friends in Colombia have proposed for decades that unifying the country and transforming its economy requires a modern national railway system.
Petro had reported as he left for Beijing that he planned to discuss a national rail network, the ongoing Metro project in the nation’s capital, Bogotá, and the “Silk Road,” that is, the Belt and Road Initiative. After Presidents Petro and Xi Jinping met Oct. 25, they announced they had agreed to upgrade relations to a “strategic partnership,” signed 12 cooperation agreements, and that Colombia would continue studying joining the BRI.
