Taiwan announced on Thursday that it will recall its ambassador to Honduras due to worsening ties, as the Central American nation prepares to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China.

Taiwan's foreign ministry stated that it had recalled the ambassador to "express our strong dissatisfaction" over Honduras sending a delegation to Beijing. The move "ignores the traditional friendship" between the two countries, which spans over 80 years.

Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on March 15 that her country would establish diplomatic ties with China, which would essentially end its current relationship with Taiwan. Only 14 countries, including Honduras, have official relations with Taiwan, as several others have switched recognition to China in recent years.

Parsifal D'Sola, founder and director of the ABF China-Latin America Research Center, said that economic benefits offered by China are particularly appealing to developing Latin American countries and hard for Taiwan or its supporters to counter. Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu warned Honduras not to "fall into China's trap" and admitted the situation was not optimistic.