|
|
Change Your Life! |
Taiwan's allies and China clash over U.N. seat for Taiwan |
|
News
|
|
|
August 12, 2000
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Taiwan's allies on Thursday called for the economically powerful island to join the United Nations, but China insisted that Taiwan is one of its provinces and not eligible to be a U.N. member. The rival views, spelled out in letters to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, set the stage for an eighth attempt by Taiwan's allies to get the U.N. General Assembly to consider membership for Taiwan when it meets in September. The attempt is doomed to fail this year, as it has for the past seven years, because Beijing's contention that there is only one China enjoys widespread support. Last year, the General Assembly's steering committee decided without a vote not to include the issue of Taiwan on the assembly's agenda. Nonetheless, the annual ritual puts the spotlight on the contentious issue and the current state of relations between China and Taiwan, which installed a newly elected president in May, Chen Shui-Bian. He has taken a conciliatory stance toward China, offering to discuss any issue at a summit, but insisting the island is not controlled by China. When it was based in China, Taiwan's former Nationalist government was one of the founding members of the United Nations in 1945. The Nationalist regime, representing the Republic of China, kept its U.N. seat after the Communist Party captured the mainland in 1949 and forced the Nationalists to retreat to Taiwan. Anticipating a humiliating expulsion from the world body, the Taiwan-based government gave up its U.N. seat in 1971 after the United Nations accepted the communist government in Beijing as the sole legitimate ruler of China. Since 1993, Taipei has mounted a campaign for equal representation with China in the United Nations while Beijing has been campaigning for Taiwan's reunification with the mainland. In their letter, a dozen of Taiwan's allies from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific said Taiwan's democratically elected government "is the sole legitimate one that can actually represent the interests and wishes of the people of Taiwan in the United Nations." "As Tuvalu of the South Pacific is to be admitted to the United Nations later this year, the Republic of China on Taiwan will then be the only country in the world that remains excluded from the United Nations. Therefore, there is an urgent need to examine this situation from a whole new perspective and redress this mistaken omission," the allies said. But China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Yingfan, countered that by raising the U.N. membership issue, Taiwan's allies were committing an "illegal act" and "grossly" interfering in China's internal affairs. The new Taiwan leaders, he said, have "attempted to continue their separatist moves against the motherland and create `two Chinas' or `one China, one Taiwan' within the United Nations system under the cloak of `democracy' and `human rights."' "Such separatist moves by the Taiwan authorities are the source of tension in the Taiwan Straits," Wang said.
|