Between science and diplomacy

• Context: Hand recount between Asfura and Nasralla advances as Trump’s actions reignite allegations of interference in Honduras
• Reaction: Ruling Free Party calls for “total cancellation” of Honduras elections

Now everything seems to be at stake, pending the unusual electoral crisis in Honduras. More than three weeks after the election of the president, there is still no winner, amid allegations of fraud and significant American interference. The result could have a direct impact on Beijing: the two presidential candidates have demonstrated their desire to break with China and resume relations with Taiwan.

It was a campaign under the shadow of Donald Trump, who promised to punish the country if his favorite, the right-wing Nasry Asfura, was not victorious. Additionally, days before the election, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, from the same party as Asfura, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for drug trafficking. There is no shortage of reasons why Trump wants to make an about-face: in addition to getting closer to China, the leftist Xiomara Castro, the current president, has threatened to expel American military bases from the country.

Meanwhile, on the eighth floor of an office building in Beijing, the Honduran embassy is on standby. After all, a single stroke of the new president’s pen could determine the end of all this. In two years of relations, the results are largely positive, estimates Moncada. One of Latin America’s poorest countries, “Honduras needs everything and China has everything to offer,” he says. He highlights the loan of $550 million for the construction of a hydroelectric plant and the granting of $280 million in non-repayable funds, mainly intended for education.

—It depends on us. They never tell us how to use the money – he says.

• To understand: Honduran president denounces “manipulation” of election results and Trump interference

Geopolitics aside, it is Moncada who makes the embassy a special case. After all, how many countries have a world-renowned scientist heading a diplomatic mission? Responsible for fundamental discoveries in cardiovascular pharmacology, he became the second most cited scientist in the world. The only reason he didn’t win the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1998 was injustice, attested to even by one of the winners.

Based for five decades in the United Kingdom, where he received the title “Sir” for his scientific contributions, Moncada ended up at the Honduran embassy in China, motivated by his interest in the country. He was on vacation in Madrid when he told a friend that the only official post he would accept was ambassador to Beijing. It didn’t take long to receive the invitation from the president. “I have always found China fascinating,” he says.

At 81, he easily transitions from science to diplomacy. He says he found the doors of the Beijing government open for him. Access facilitated by the admiration of the Chinese for his brilliant scientific career and, to top it off, the additional charm of being married to a princess, Maria Esmeralda of Belgium. Behind his easy smile, Moncada does not hide his concern about the future of his embassy, ​​whose days could be numbered. But he remains convinced that the right path is to maintain ties with China.