Ten of Taiwan's diplomatic allies submitted a joint proposal to the UN Secretariat on Wednesday in New York, urging its General Assembly to set up a working group to reconsider the possibility of the Republic of China on Taiwan re-entering the world body, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
"The purpose of the working group would be to examine Taiwan's exceptional international situation and calls for the international community to pay close attention to the cross-strait situation in order to encourage both sides of the Taiwan Strait to resume dialogue and communication on a peaceful basis and equal footing," vice foreign minister Wu Tzu-dan (
The 10 countries are El Salvador, Senegal, Dominica, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Nicaragua, Chad, Tuvalu, Palau and Belize.
Taiwan currently has 28 diplomatic allies. Each year since 1993 it has lobbied those allies to launch at the UN the nation's bid to rejoin the world body. Last year's bid was launched by 14 allies. The above ten countries are those that have agreed to launch this year's bid.
Wu said that Taiwan's bid to join the UN did not aim to challenge the People's Republic of China's seat. But, he said, Beijing must be made to understand that its continuous obstruction of Taiwan's participation in the international community would only cause the 23 million people of Taiwan to be antipathetic towards China and thus hamper the development of cross-strait relations.
Bowing to China's opposition, the UN Steering Committee has overruled Taiwan's re-entry into the UN for eight consecutive years and failed to put the proposal onto the General Assembly's agenda. But Taiwan's representative to the US Chen Chien-jen (程建人) yesterday said that Taiwan's efforts to join major international organizations were mainly aimed at highlighting the unfair treatment the nation has endured from the world community.
"The main purpose of our UN bid is to call for world attention to the unfair and unreasonable treatment our country has received over the past years," Chen told his audience while delivering a speech at a lunch meeting organized by the Los Angeles World Affairs Council yesterday.
Chen added that although Taiwan's road to the UN may be "rugged," the government and people would not be daunted by any obstacle.
Noting that Taiwan is the only country in the world that remains excluded from the UN, the explanatory memorandum attached to the proposal also requested the inclusion on the agenda of the UN's 56th General Assembly session of an item titled "Need to examine the exceptional international situation pertaining to the ROC and ensure that the fundamental right of Taiwan's 23 million people to participate in the work and activities of the UN is fully respected."
As major western countries including the US, Britain and France ? all permanent members of the UN Security Council ? opposed a similar proposal last year, Wu also said that the ministry has been utilizing "appropriate channels" to persuade those countries to "adopt a position of neutrality" when discussing the proposal.
In 1971, Taiwan left the UN. Its seat was in turn awarded to the PRC by the UN.
Before then, Chiang Kai-shek's (
Chen also touched on Taiwan's bid to join the WTO, saying that Taiwan was likely to be admitted to the Geneva-based world trade regulatory body in November or December this year.
He added the Taiwan government hopes that the US will take active steps to promote Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization as an observer.
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