Finally, under resolution 2758, The UN General Assembly decided to oust the ROC and admit the PRC by a vote of 76 for, 35 against, with 17 abstentions.
"The US said in the UN corridor that there were rumors the USSR was going to do its very best to block the entry of the PRC, given the then Sino-Soviet split. But we told the US that was impossible, as both countries basically adhered to communism, despite the conflict between leaders of the two countries," Chien said.
Skullduggery
Another interesting element to the story was the detaining of three delegates -- who were to support Taiwan's position -- by the Soviets.
"As it turned out, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, three new UN members, had at first voiced their support for Taiwan prior to the final showdown. But the day the issue was to put to a vote, the delegates of these three countries were nowhere to be found," Chien recalled.
"The next day our ambassador to Kuwait Wang Shih-ming (王世明) found them, and they told him that staffers from the USSR delegation visited them in the early morning [on Oct. 25] to ... take them to a town named White Plains, north of New York City, to buy some gifts until 7pm, claiming things in the city were too expensive," Chien said.
The Soviet diplomats also told them that the question of China's representation would not be put to a vote that evening, thus deferring their return to New York City until 10pm, well after the final showdown.
Both Loh and Chien denounced the argument that dual representation, if passed in 1971, would have ensured Taipei's seat in the UN for good.
"The UN is an amphitheater whose gladiators are nation states, with everybody playing realpolitik. If the dual representation proposal were passed in 1971, Communist China would definitely have refused to enter the UN. We could at most drag things out for another two years or so before being ousted from the UN," Loh wrote.
"After all, the precondition of the PRC's entry into the UN, as stated clearly by the regime, was to expel us first," Chien said. "And the international trend then was that a country that had one-fourth of the world's population should not be excluded from such an international organization."
Loh also added another penetrating point: "Our mistake lay in failing to accept Italy's proposal during 1966 to 1968 when Taipei and Beijing had similar numbers of diplomatic allies. ... When every country gave up the proposal of `two Chinas,' our chance was gone never to return," Loh wrote.
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