Taiwan’s Bid to Join UN

By Frank Ching

For months, President Chen Shui-bian has been talking about the importance of holding a referendum to see if the 23 million people of Taiwan would support the government applying to join the United Nations not under its formal name, the Republic of China, but under the name Taiwan.

So vigorously has Chen championed this cause that even the opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, is now in favor of holding a referendum on the island joining the United Nations and the name that it should use.

However, any referendum, if it is going to be held, will not be conducted until next year, probably in conjunction with the presidential election in March.

It came as something of a surprise, therefore, to discover that President Chen has jumped the gun and sent a letter to the United Nations Secretariat applying to join the United Nations, and to do so in the name Taiwan. If he could do this anyway, without benefit of a referendum, then why was there so much fuss about holding a referendum?

Also, in the past, Taiwan did not submit an application until September, when the General Assembly begins its annual session. This time, why did Chen not wait for September when it can be done properly by going to the General Assembly rather than approaching Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon?

The answer to both questions is politics. Taiwan is in the midst of the campaign season, with both parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for early next year, and the president, who by law is barred from running for another four-year term, is stirring up the pot to invigorate the Democratic Progressive Party’s pro-independence electoral base.

As expected, the United Nations Secretariat rejected Chen’s application and, as expected, Chen and the DPP denounced the United Nations for denying the 23 million people of Taiwan representation.

Chen also achieved another objective: getting Beijing to denounce him and his attempt to join the United Nations.

China learned the hard way that every time it denounces or threatens Taiwan’s leader, whether Chen or his predecessor, Lee Teng-hui, it is counterproductive. Internally, the people close ranks behind their government and, internationally, the world silently shakes its head at the sight of giant China browbeating tiny Taiwan. For China, it is always a lose-lose situation. But for Taiwan, it is win-win.

In recent years, therefore, Beijing has learned to bite its tongue and be silent despite taunts from Taipei.

China has left the United States to rein in the Taiwan leader and be the recipient of Taiwanese anger and, by and large, Washington has played this role.

But the United States has to walk a fine line, supporting Taiwan’s democracy but opposing anything that it sees as an attempt to change the status quo, such as seeking formal independence.

This time, Beijing could no longer contain itself. A joint statement from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee denounced Chen as ``scum," a ``schemer" and a ``destroyer of peace and stability."

Chen is no doubt overjoyed since the last thing he wants is to be ignored. This gesture of standing up for Taiwan has won the president great dividends.

For one thing, even Ma Ying-jeou, the presidential candidate of the opposition Nationalist Party, has sided with him and condemned the United Nations for rejecting Chen’s application, saying that the application ``is legitimate and deserves the public’s full support.”

Having reaped such rich rewards, Chen can be counted on to apply to join the United Nations again in September, this time by getting some of the 24 countries that still have diplomatic relations with Taiwan to submit a letter to the Secretary-General requesting the General Assembly to put on its agenda the question of Taiwan’s representation in the United Nations.

These countries will also submit a draft resolution on Taiwan’s representation but, each year, they have failed to even have the item put on the agenda because the vast majority of United Nations member countries have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and support its ``one China” principle according to which Taiwan is not a separate country but is a part of China.

President Chen, of course, knows that it is futile to apply twice in the same year to join the United Nations. But, from his perspective, there is always another election to be won, not in the General Assembly but in Taiwan.

Frank.ching@gmail.com