For the last 14 years, Taiwan's application for UN membership under the name "Republic of China" has failed. This year, Taiwan applied for UN membership under the name "Taiwan" for the first time. The Taiwan UN Alliance (TAIUNA) sent a group to New York led by Cheng Ying-er (
Internationally, many people don't know that Taiwan is not a member of the UN and is blocked from becoming a UN member. This makes it difficult to consolidate the powers that can push for UN membership for Taiwan. The international support that we felt at the recent demonstration in the US inspired us deeply. A friend from the UK even told us he would remember Taiwan every Sunday in his prayers.
TAIUNA secretary-general William Lo (
Taiwan is currently participating in only 17 of the more than 700 existing international organizations. For the dignity of Taiwan's 23 million people, trying our best to win international acknowledgment is a responsibility that we cannot shirk.
If we lock ourselves up on our island and embrace passive defeatism, we will never get into the UN. We need to actively publicize Taiwan internationally. Our movie directors and athletes are world famous, and this should fill us with confidence about our own worthiness of becoming a UN member.
Pessimism and negativity and wallowing in self-pity cannot win Taiwan the respect of others.
Liao Lin Li-ling is the spokeswoman of the delegation "UN for Taiwan."
Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
US President Donald Trump on Monday gave his inauguration speech. Although mainly directed at US citizens, his words were subject to global scrutiny by leaders and others wanting to understand more about his intentions for his second term. The US has been Taiwan’s strongest ally since the end of World War II and Trump’s first term brought many welcome advances in Taiwan-US ties. Still, many Taiwanese are concerned about what Trump’s second term will mean for the nation, especially after comments he made concerning Taiwan’s national defense and semiconductor industry. During Monday’s address, Trump said that the US “will once again consider
RSS