This is John Batchel, a conversation with Professor Evan Ellis at the U.S. Army War College about Honduras.

Another election upcoming, it looks like the Castro administration will be continued.

Evan speaks of nepotism, family members employed in the cabinet.

More, Evan points to the embrace of China and vice versa, including journalists from Honduras,

going to the PRC to be trained in journalism of all professions. A turn to the left is a modest way of

putting it. Honduras is the source of many, many of the immigrants who came to the United States without invitation and without

documents. It is part of the Northern Triangle problem of the rush to the border. And now China's

planting its flag. Here's Evan to explain. Much more of this later.

That's a great question, John. And certainly Honduras's trajectory for the past several years since the Libre Party with Mel Zelaya's wife, Schumer Castro, came to power.

And what we've seen just over those years has been a deepening turn to both the left family nepotism and also in a brace

of China, all of which creates concerns by this country, which is a source of integration

to the United States and also a security partner for drugs and other challenges directly

affecting the United States, given Honduras's proximity.

But what you certainly do see is that with the elections next month, it appears that the Libre Party will be able to continue in office.

There are the prospects for a alternative do not seem to be good at this point.

But the implications of that, this is, again, this is a party where you have a series of the key leadership figures implicated in corruption and a number of those, including the defense minister, actually,

relative of the president. So beyond the nepotism, one of the big concerns has been

the turn to the radical left and, again, the embrace of China to that end. And so with respect

to new electricity infrastructure projects, new telecom infrastructure projects with Honolutelle,

new generation projects with respect to a dam, the training of Honduran journalists in the PRC, the opening

of a new Confucius Institute in Tugusa Galpa, just to name several other things. The direction of Honduras, I think, has been worrisome, although there is still pluralistic democracy, unlike some other countries in the region.