August 10, 2000
Taiwan's allies called yesterday in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the General Assembly to consider UN membership for the island nation. China responded in another letter to Annan, insisting that Taiwan is a Chinese province and therefore not eligible to join the world body.
Taiwan's bid marks its eighth attempt to join the UN since 1993. The General Assembly's steering committee last year decided without a vote not to include Taiwan on its agenda. According to the Associated Press, since Beijing's contention that there is only one China is widely supported, Taiwan's bid is once again "doomed to fail."
In the letter to Annan, 12 countries from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific said Taiwan's 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 letter says.
China's UN Ambassador Wang Yingfan responded that Taiwan's allies are "grossly" interfering in China's internal affairs. He called Taiwan's bid for membership an "illegal act," and accused Taiwan's leaders of "attempt[ing] 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.'"
Taiwan's former nationalist government was one of the founding members of the UN in 1945. The Taiwan government gave up its seat in 1971, though, anticipating a UN ruling that Beijing's communist government is the only legitimate ruler of China. Since his election last May, Taiwan's President Chen Shui-Bian has offered to discuss the issue with China at a summit but refuses to concede Taiwan's sovereignty to China.
