Taiwan lost its UN seat to China in 1971 when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758 and expelled the "representatives of Chiang Kai-shek [蔣介石]."
Although once an authoritarian state, Taiwan has evolved into what the US Department of State officially recognizes as a multi-party democracy.
Yet despite the remarkable changes, Taiwan continues to be locked out of most important international organizations -- including the UN.
For almost 15 years, Taiwan attempted to rejoin the UN by using names and strategies designed to avoid antagonizing China. Each year, Taipei's diplomatic friends asked the General Assembly to review Resolution 2758 and to view China as a divided country -- just like the Koreas.
And Taiwan always used its official moniker -- the Republic of China (ROC) -- when seeking to convince the UN to review its case. But these efforts went nowhere.
This year, Taipei mounted a noisy campaign to enter the UN as "Taiwan." The move has placed it on a collision course both with the US, its closest friend and supporter, and China. Officials acknowledge that the campaign makes some countries uncomfortable.
But they also complain that all past "rational and modest appeals" were ignored by the global community.
The new bid to join the world body as "Taiwan" and the corresponding plan to hold a referendum on the issue is drawing international attention to Taiwan's plight.
The Bush administration vigorously opposes Taiwan's push to join the UN. Officials have advanced a number of arguments to justify the US stance. Some warn that the initiative will "increase tensions in the Taiwan Strait" and "appears" to change the "status quo." Others point out that the effort is a "futile gesture" as China, with its seat on the UN Security Council, can block Taiwan's entry to the body. Still others suggest that the US cannot get behind the campaign because supporting Taiwan's membership in the UN would violate its "one China" policy.
Finally, some US officials have said that Washington does not support Taiwan's membership in international organizations that require statehood, including the UN.
To be sure, each of these arguments holds merit.
As President Chen Shui-bian (
Washington should not support Taiwan's full membership in the UN or jettison its "one China" policy. This would jeopardize the US' important relationship with China. Moreover, Taiwan's UN campaign does hold the potential to increase tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has already threatened Taiwan and calls its vice president as "the scum of the nation." And Taiwan's new drive to join the UN is doomed to failure. China will undoubtedly block the move. But there is something the US can do.
In order to defuse the UN controversy and help prevent it from escalating into a regional or global crisis, the US administration ought to abide by an important part of official policy that it now ignores. According to the 1994 interagency review of US policy toward Taiwan, the US will "support opportunities for Taiwan's voice to be heard in organizations where it is denied membership." But Taipei still has no voice in the UN.
Rather than bully Taipei, Washington ought to follow the advice it so often proffers to Beijing and try out some new thinking.
Employing quiet diplomacy, the US should gently nudge other countries -- including China -- toward the idea that Taiwan deserves a voice in the UN and should be allowed to participate -- if only as an "observer" or "non-state actor." When the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly opens next September and Taipei's diplomatic allies once again ask it to consider Taiwan's full membership, Washington should be prepared to support a compromise proposal that is consistent with longstanding US policy and does not violate the sacrosanct "one China policy."
The Bush administration should endorse a resolution that enables Taiwan to participate in the UN as an observer using a name similar to the one it now employs when participating in the Olympic Games -- Chinese Taipei.
After all, it is clear that the time has arrived for the international community to find a way for Taiwan's voice to be heard in the UN.
Dennis Hickey is director of the graduate program in International Affairs at Missouri State University.
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