Taiwan began its 11th bid to join the UN as 15 of its diplomatic allies submitted a joint proposal to the body in support of the nation's entry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
"It's our hope that countries lacking diplomatic ties with Taiwan will speak for us on the floor of the UN General Assembly," Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kau (
The proposal said Taiwan's exclusion from the UN is a moral and legal challenge for the international community.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMESN
The proposal also asked the UN General Assembly to include a supplementary item entitled "Question of the Representation of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the United Nations" on the agenda of its 58th session, slated to begin on Sept. 16.
The 15 countries are Belize, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gambia, Grenada, Malawi, Nicaragua, Palau, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Swaziland and Tuvalu.
"The Taiwan Presbyterian Church and local Aboriginal groups are slated to dispatch a large mission to New York City to get our views across," Kau said.
Although Taiwan has been frustrated by its inability to return to the UN fold since it was expelled in 1971, continuing to bid for access to the UN is essential since it can highlight the country's yearnings for a return to the body, he said.
"It is unjust that the 23 million people of Taiwan are not represented at the UN. We have to make this known to the international community," Kau said.
When asked why the country didn't use "Taiwan" in its UN bid instead of "Republic of China (Taiwan)," Kau said the ROC remains the nation's formal designation according to the Constitution, adding that the word Taiwan in parentheses could help clarify the difference between the ROC and the People's Republic of China (PRC).
A memorandum attached to the proposal said Taiwan is a free and peace-loving state, and that its democratically elected government is the only legitimate body able to represent the interests and wishes of the people of Taiwan at the UN.
It also argued that UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, adopted on Oct. 25, 1971, which seated Beijing at the UN, did not resolve the issue of Taiwan's representation.
Kau said the resolution has been misinterpreted to justify Taiwan's exclusion.
The resolution recognized the PRC government as the only legitimate representative of China to the UN and "to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek (
"The resolution expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek, but the [current] government in Taiwan is not equal to the Chiang Kai-shek regime. This resolution is not applicable to contemporary Taiwan," said Kau, a former political scientist at Brown University in the US.
Kau also said the government has no plan to hold a referendum on the nation's UN bid.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
RSS