Former German member of the European Parliament Reinhard Butikofer on Thursday urged the international community to counter China’s use of UN Resolution 2758 against Taiwan.
He made the comments at a conference hosted by the Taipei Representative Office in Berlin, saying that the deliberate misinterpretation of the resolution is an aspect of Beijing’s “lawfare.”
Resolution 2758, passed in 1971, states that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only legitimate representative of China at the UN, which enabled Beijing to replace the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan’s official name, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Photo: CNA
Butikofer, who chaired the event, said that the essence of China’s legal warfare is to export its domestic system of rule by law as part of the global order.
The EU as a whole, including Germany, does not recognize China’s interpretation of UN Resolution 2758 as making Taiwan part of its sovereign territory, he said.
As Beijing is aggressively seeking the support of foreign countries to lend legitimacy to its claims, democracies around the world must take a stronger stance against China’s false narrative, he said.
The resolution was concerned with determining China’s representation in the UN, without making any reference to Taiwan, its legal status or representation in the UN framework, he said.
Beijing’s push to conflate its distorted version of the resolution with the so-called “one China” principle has repercussions not only for Taiwan’s representation in international organizations, but also peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, Representative to Germany Ku Jiu-Sheng (谷瑞生) said.
Germany and the EU have voiced the view that Taiwan’s participation in global frameworks should be encouraged, and that this policy stance does not conflict with the resolution.
The global strategic landscape has changed since the resolution’s passage in the 1970s, transforming the West’s strategic ambiguity from an advantage into a weakness that China’s “gray zone” warfare could exploit, he said.
Western nations should re-examine the prosperity of their “one China” policy and consider whether it should be replaced by a “one Taiwan” policy, he said.
Berlin’s “one China policy” in no way resembles Beijing’s “one China principle,” he added.
Germany, the UK, France, Canada, Australia and Japan should form a coalition of the willing to support Taiwan’s defense by actions including the passage of warships and other shows of resolve, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Chien-chi (林倩綺) told the conference that, in discussions of Resolution 2758, it is important to distinguish between the resolution’s original intent and the “additional meanings that have emerged through more than five decades of political interpretation, so that political claims are not gradually treated as established facts of international law.”
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator-at-Large Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬) said only Taiwanese should decide Taiwan’s future.
The resolution should not hold Taiwan back from contributing to the world in key domains including secure supply chains, she added.
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