On Aug. 21, the Australian Senate passed a motion proclaiming that UN Resolution 2758 does not involve Taiwan’s status. On Sunday, the House of Representatives of the Netherlands voted overwhelmingly in favor of a motion stating that Resolution 2758 in no way determines that China has sovereignty over Taiwan, nor does its language exclude Taiwan from joining the UN or other international organizations.
In Taipei, during cross-party negotiations on Wednesday last week, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus put forward a proposal, hoping that the other parties would respond with a cross-party narrative to challenge China’s distortion of Resolution 2758 and accept the international community’s inititiaves confirming it has nothing to do with Taiwan.
However, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) pretended not to hear the proposal and immediately adjourned proceedings for the day. The KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus whips left the chamber.
The KMT’s excuse was that “the resolution would create a tense relationship.”
Is it afraid that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would feel the tension?
KMT and TPP politicians could do with a little help on understanding the background to the resolution. In 1971, the UN passed Albania’s resolution to “expel the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek [蔣介石]” and reinvest all the rights to represent China in the UN. This was UN Resolution 2758. The most important phrase is this “recognizing that the representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] are the only lawful representatives of China to the UN, and to immediately expel the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the UN and all its organizations as representatives of China.”
UN Resolution 2758 decides the right to represent China. It does not determine Taiwan’s sovereignty.
It comes as no surprise that prior to the resolution’s passing — at just past 4pm on Oct. 21, 1971 — then-Chinese leader Zhou Enlai (周恩來) consulted former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who at the time was the US national security adviser, telling him he was worried that a section related to Taiwan’s status could not be added to Albania’s motion — Resolution 2758 — as: “In that resolution, it is not possible to put in a clause concerning the status of Taiwan, and, if it is passed, the status of Taiwan is not yet decided.”
Zhou knew that the resolution did not determine Taiwan’s status, but the Chinese Communist Party would soon start distorting and manipulating the interpretation of the resolution at every opportunity to suit its sophistry that Taiwan belongs to China. This manipulation went as far as the 2007 gaffe by then-UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon being misled about the resolution, misstating that the nation was a part of the PRC.
Immediately after Ban’s gaffe, Washington issued a non-paper to the secretary-general, clarifying that Resolution 2758 makes no such determination that Taiwan is a province of the PRC.
The US’ permanent representative to the UN was instructed soon after to make a public expression of Washington’s stance.
KMT and TPP members worried about Xi’s anxiety should once more be reminded that had they been around when the Chiang regime was expelled from the UN, none of them would have made a claim on the PRC’s behalf.
When the Republic of China was removed from China’s UN seat, the KMT was full of bluster and up in arms about its expulsion. Why is it that nowadays, as soon as the KMT (and the TPP) hears mention of foreign countries trying to help Taiwan fight China’s warping and distortion of Resolution 2758, these “lackeys” run and hide?
It is quite tame to call them lackeys; United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) used a more forceful phrase: He called them a pack of “running dogs.”
Lee Hsiao-feng is a professor emeritus at National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Tim Smith
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