One of the things China excels at is misrepresenting the law and punishing the innocent. Still, it came as a surprise when Beijing tried to do this to Taiwan ahead of the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting.
In the WHA invitation letter Taiwan received, both UN Resolution 2758 and WHA Resolution 25.1 were erroneously interpreted and completely misused. The most important thing that must be clarified is that the two resolutions are by no means in line with the “one China” principle, and the reason is simple.
Just look at the time they were adopted: UN Resolution 2758 was adopted in 1971, and WHA Resolution 2501 in 1972, both were well before the idea of “one China” even took shape. Not to mention what the resolutions actually say.
The most important thing we need to know about UN Resolution 2758 is that it acknowledges the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only legitimate representative of China to the UN.
This raises the question: What about the Republic of China (ROC)? The resolution clearly states that president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) government was unlawfully occupying the PRC’s place at the UN, and his representatives must be expelled.
In a nutshell, the UN decided in 1971 that the ROC ceased to exist in 1949, therefore all the UN seats which previously belonged to the ROC should be held by the PRC.
A year later, based on the UN resolution, the WHO announced that on the advice of its executive committee it had decided to let the PRC take its seat at the WHA and immediately expel Chiang’s representatives from the place that they “unlawfully occupied.”
The two resolutions are consistent in their spirit and tenor: They both deemed Chiang’s place at the UN unlawful and in so doing sentenced the ROC to death.
Throughout the process, there had absolutely been no mention of “one China.”
Beijing’s “one China” principle did not appear until much later, in 2000, when China issued a white paper entitled One China and the Taiwan Problem (一個中國原則與台灣問題), which emphasized that there is only “one China” and Taiwan is part of it, rejecting the US’ proposition in 1954 that the status of Taiwan was yet to be determined.
Another question we must ask is: When did “one China” become a prerequisite for Taiwan to join the WHA?
Research shows that some time before February 2005, China and the WHO Secretariat must have inked an under-the-table memo of understanding acknowledging China as the ruler of Taiwan, giving Beijing the right to decide whether Taiwan can attend the WHA.
By the time the Hong Kong-born Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) became director-general of the WHO, China took advantage of its status as a third-category observer, blatantly misrepresenting the UN and WHA resolutions by collating its “one China” principle into the resolutions to secure its political interests.
According to news reports, the WHA invitation letter did not enclose the account and password needed for enrollment. Without such information, Taiwan could still be excluded from the WHA.
China’s use of the UN resolution to again call attention the ROC’s nonexistence is not necessarily bad for Taiwan. There is no way a dead thing can be resurrected, and the reason Taiwan has been treated like a dead fish is that it has for too long been trying to pretend to be the dead ROC.
The only solution is to build a new and independent country. This way, Taiwan would be able break free from its manacles, justify its right to join the UN and engage with the international community.
Chin Heng-wei is a political commentator.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US