The diplomatic setback in which the WTO Secretariat removed the diplomatic titles of some of Taiwan's officials in last year's directory of representatives was a result of former WTO representative Yen Ching-chang's (顏慶章) negligence in safeguarding the nation's sovereignty, according to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水).
The directory, which was released in June last year, acts as an internal address book for WTO officials.
Only the top two officials in Taiwan's permanent mission to the WTO are identified by their titles. For other lower ranking officials, only their names and areas of expertise are listed, while their diplomatic titles are not included.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
On Friday, Lin criticized Yen's "concession" to a statement that denigrated Taiwan's status to that of Hong Kong and Macau during a 1992 meeting of the WTO's predecesor, the GATT.
According to the minutes of the GATT General Council meeting addressing Taiwan's accession to the GATT, the chairman "stated that as a part of the understanding, the representation of Chinese Taipei in GATT would be along the same lines as that of Hong Kong and Macau during the course of its status as an observer?and that the titles carried by its representatives would not have any implication on the issue of sovereignty."
In response, the General Council stated it "took note of the statement," but refrained from using the word "agreed."
The same meeting approved another proposal by the chairman to consider China's bid to enter the trade body before Taiwan's.
Lin said the wording "took note of" is not as strong a diplomatic term as terms like "agree" or "recognize."
The legislator said that China used the 1992 GATT document to pressure the secretariat of the trade body when it became the WTO.
This, Lin said, led to former WTO secretary-general Supachai Panitchpakdi requesting that Taiwan abandon the formal titles its WTO mission staff members in Geneva had enjoyed, in accordance with the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said that Yen wrote in a confidential telegram he dispatched to Taipei on Feb. 14, 2003 that Taiwan had agreed to the 1992 chairman's understanding, therefore validating WTO secretary-general Supachai's request.
Lai, a former member of the National Security Council, was involved in the government's negotiations with the WTO.
Lai said Yen's telegram stated that Taiwan's acquiescence to the 1992 GATT document would enhance interaction between China and Taiwan at the WTO.
Lai, however, dismissed the validity of the 1992 chairman's statement, saying that the meeting was merely at a working-party level.
It, therefore, had no legal bearing for the WTO.
The GATT General Council did not approve of the statement, but only "took note of" it, Lai said.
"If it was legally binding, how could Taiwan be granted permanent mission status and the diplomatic titles such as commissioner and counselor in 2002 when Taiwan entered the WTO? And since we had these titles, why did we agree to give them away?" Lai said.
The GATT's use of different wordings to deal with China and Taiwan is similar to diplomatic communiques other nations signed with China when they established diplomatic ties with that country during the 1970s, Lin said.
The Canadian government said it "took note of" China's position that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, while the US said it "acknowledges" this.
Japan at the time said it "fully understands and respects" the Chinese position.
Lin said that the late Chinese foreign minister Ji Pengfei (
Lin said Yen had been negligent in his duties and had seriously undermined Taiwan's sovereignty.
"It is humiliating and embarrassing that our top man in Geneva did not insist on fighting, but rather, gave in to China's pressure," he said.
Yen, who is now chairman of the government-owned Fuhwa Financial Holding Co, was not available for comment.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching