This year’s UN General Assembly opens in New York City on Sept. 12. Eyes are now on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration, which must decide whether it will refrain from pursuing UN membership for the nation, as it did last year.
While the government has yet to announce any UN plan, some people are urging Tsai to maintain a low profile to avoid acting “provocatively toward Beijing,” given that the Chinese Communist Party is to hold a national congress this fall and the uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s Taiwan policy.
People who make such suggestions are basically tying Taiwan’s UN bid to cross-strait relations, thereby limiting Taiwan’s international space by turning diplomatic activities into bargaining chips for cross-strait developments and allowing the China factor to determine the efforts to gain a bigger international presence.
The Republic of China’s (ROC) efforts to return to the UN began in 1993, under then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The primary motivation for Lee’s push was to highlight that the ROC is a sovereign nation, that it deserved a seat in the world body and that it did not deny the existence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) nor its seat in the UN.
In 2007, under then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the government took a more active approach. In addition to asking allies to submit Taiwan’s UN membership application and call on other members to deal fairly with the nation’s right to representation at the world body, the Chen administration sought membership under the name “Taiwan” instead of the ROC and Chen personally wrote letters to the UN Secretariat.
After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took office in 2008, his administration stopped seeking UN membership, instead turning to what he termed a “pragmatic approach” that sought only “meaningful participation in UN-affiliated agencies.”
When the DPP’s Tsai came to power last year, her administration followed Ma’s approach, and did not seek membership.
While some critics praised Tsai’s “careful manner,” they ignored that this “non-provocative” approach in no way reduced China’s hostility nor its suppression of Taiwan’s participation in global organizations.
When Panama switched its recognition from Taipei to Beijing in June, Tsai said that “under such circumstances, we will re-evaluate the cross-strait situation and we will be firmer against pressure [from Beijing].”
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) had previously said that “If our participation in international organizations depends on China’s ‘charity,’ [it] is an illusion.”
Hopefully, Tsai and her officials will follow their words with concrete action. Next month’s UN General Assembly provides a prime opportunity for them to prove that they meant what they said about boosting Taiwan’s global presence despite China’s obstructionism.
UN Resolution 2758, adopted in 1971, resolved the issue of representation of China by replacing the ROC with the PRC as the sole representative of China in the world body. However, it did not deal with the question of who represents Taiwanese nor state that Taiwan is part of the PRC.
As such, Taiwan should not suspend its efforts to seek its rightful place in the UN and improve its international status just to avoid irritating China.
The bid for UN membership is also backed by the public, as a survey by the Taiwanese Public Opinion in June found that 84.8 percent of respondents supported Taiwan’s long-term goal of rejoining the UN, regardless of opposition from China, the US or both.
Beijing will certainly try to block Taiwan’s efforts, but that should not prevent steps from being taken.
If the Tsai government shies away again from actively seeking UN membership, it essentially could be disarming the nation diplomatically.
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