In an unprecedented video conference with the United Nation Correspondents Association (UNCA) last night, President Chen Shui-bian (
The president spoke on behalf of Taiwan's UN bid, saying that Taiwan's unfair exclusion from the world body was tantamount to being an "international vagabond" and thus the country was the "victim of political apartheid."
Arguing that UN Resolution 2758, which recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the representative of the people of China, did not address Taiwan's status, Chen said it is regrettable that "Resolution 2758 is wrongly interpreted to justify Taiwan's exclusion from taking part in the UN, and to deny the basic right of Taiwan's 23 million people to join the UN family."
According to UN Resolution 2758 in 1971, the PRC was dubbed the "only legitimate representative" of China. China's UN seat had previously been held by the Republic of China under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
"Taiwan is Taiwan. It will not and can not compete with China's representative in the UN," Chen said. Citing the participation of both North Korea and South Korea and West Germany and East Germany as examples of a similar situation during his speech, Chen made a point of saying that Taiwan's pursuit of UN membership was not a challenge to the PRC's place in UN.
"A free and democratic country like Taiwan ... should not be a missing piece [in the world community]," Chen said during his 10-minute opening remarks in the conference.
Noting his recent decision to cancel a portion of the Han Kuang live-fire military drill, Chen stated that his intention was to demonstrate Taiwan's sincere desire and determination for cross-strait peace.
China's incessant obstruction of Taiwan would only further lacerate the feelings of Taiwanese people toward China and further the distance between the two, Chen said, adding that Taiwan would not shy away from its duty to get involved in international affairs.
"The president will, through the event, highlight the unfairness of Taiwan's exclusion from the world body and call on the international community to support Taiwan's UN membership bid, based on the principle of equality," said Presidential Office Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday, prior to the staging of the one-hour conference which started at 10:30pm Taiwan time.
Due to "obstruction from China" and the UN's assertion that holding the videoconference on UN property would violate UN resolutions, officials were forced to relocate the interview to nearby UN Plaza Hotel from its original location, the association's clubroom inside UN headquarters.
Given the location change, the videoconference thus was no longer hosted by the UNCA, but rather the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in New York, as UNCA president Anthony Jenkins said that he did not want to set a precedent.
During the one-hour videoconference, Chen gave an introductory speech, which was then followed by an English translation presented by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (
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,
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
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS