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Why can't Taiwan come to the U.N. table?

September 22, 1999

UNITED NATIONS -- Three small Pacific island states at long last gained membership in the U.N. The principle of political universality was again underscored as Nauru, Kiribati, and the Kingdom of Tonga joined 185 other countries in the big tent of global diplomacy. The politics of inclusion ensures that even the world's micro-states may enter the club of nations.

It's tragically ironic that another Pacific island democracy, the Republic of China, whose government played a key role in founding the United Nations in 1945 continues to be excluded from membership by the world's largest remaining dictatorship. Yet for the seventh straight year, the People's Republic of China sidelined a proposed agenda item which would have simply permitted discussion of what Beijing considers a "renegade province."

That Beijing's Marxist Mandarins have again chosen to bully small and democratic Taiwan is not in itself usual--what is more troubling is that for the first time, in a heated committee hearing, a representative of the United States agreed with the People's Republic of China and against the people of Taiwan!

America joined Beijing's representatives and delegates from Bangladesh, Belerus, and Burma among others, in silencing open discussions on Taiwan's right to participate in the UN!

That the People's Republic of China controls the Mainland and the Republic of China controls Taiwan--remains a de facto political reality for the last fifty years! Tragically China is a divided nation much as Germany was until a decade ago, or Korea is today. Whether or not the PRC wishes it, there happen to be two separate states who jointly have jurisdiction over the territory of the single Chinese nation.

It's arrogant and preposterous to permit the PRC to claim the name "China" as if it were a political trademark and not in fact the victim of a national division since 1949.

Recent remarks by ROC President Lee Tung-hui that both Taiwan and the PRC are in fact "separate states," have reigned a firestorm of Beijing's hostility.

While the PRC ousted the ROC from its UN membership in 1971, the reality remains that the move, reflecting the fissures of the cold war, clearly discriminates against the 22 million people on Taiwan.

The Republic of China on Taiwan fulfills the classic attributes of a statehood under international law--it likewise has, through hard work, build one of East Asia's powerhouse economies which stands as a model for the developing world.

Taiwan's economy is larger than ninety percent of the UN's 188 member states; even her population is bigger than two thirds of the UN membership! Should Taiwan participate in the world body, her budget assessments and contributions to enhance economic development programs would be a boom for the cash-strapped organization.

Naturally the Great Wall of the PRC's membership veto realistically blocks Taipei's participation. Nonetheless there's a prescendent for divided nations joining the UN--until reunification, both West and East Germany held separate UN seats; likewise today both South and North Korea maintain separate delegations.

Taipei is not without support. Allies from the Caribbean, Central America and Africa have openly called for Taiwan's reinclusion in the UN.

Beijing's calls for Chinese reunification--crudely finessed through military threats, diplomatic isolation, and constant coercion, increasingly alienate a vibrantly democratic Taiwan from its cousins on the Mainland.

If the PRC is genuinely serious about reunification, rather that pushing Taiwan into diplomatic corners, it would allow Taiwan a "face saving" safety valve to both defuse growing cross straits tensions as well as to dampen Taipei's enthusiasm about choosing a political path not within the confines of the Chinese nation.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues who writes weekly for World Tribune.com.