Taipei, March 8 (IANS) Taiwan has rejected China’s claim for the earlier to be represented in the United Nations as “Taiwan, Province of China.”
Rejecting the Chinese claim the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) of Taiwan said that the “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognised by the international community.
The MAC on Friday in a statement added that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor claims that it is part of China.
Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lin Chia-lung, on Friday said that Beijing is keen to mischaracterise UN Resolution 2758 to support its claim that Taiwan is part of China.
He stated that many countries, especially Western democracies, have already confirmed that UN Resolution 2758 only addresses China’s representation at the UN and does not mention Taiwan.
Such a viewpoint has been subscribed to by almost all democratic nations, including the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada, as well as the European Parliament, in resolutions or governmental statements, Lin said.
Lin further stated that China wants to reframe the so-called “Taiwan issue” as its internal issue and the Taiwan Strait as its internal waters, giving Beijing a reason to annex Taiwan while barring interference from other nations. He added that this is part of Beijing’s hybrid warfare to block international support for Taiwan, reports the leading Taiwanese daily, Taipei Times.
This came as Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, while addressing a news conference on Friday at the third session of the 14th National People’s Congress, had said, “The only reference to the Taiwan region in the United Nations is ‘Taiwan, Province of China’. Taiwan was never a country, not in the past, and never in the future.”
Wang stated that the UN resolution completely resolves the issue of representation for all of China, including Taiwan, within the UN, definitively eliminating any possibility of creating “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan.”
Seeking “Taiwan independence” is doomed to backfire, and using Taiwan to contain China will be nothing but a futile attempt, he said, adding that “China will realise reunification, and this is unstoppable.”
In February, the United States Senators accused China of subverting United Nations Resolution 2758 in an attempt to isolate Taiwan. The senators proposed a bipartisan resolution in the US Senate reaffirming US support for Taiwan.
The resolution opposes China’s attempt to prevent Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations. It further states that China has “weaponised” UN Resolution 2758 to distort history and isolate Taiwan, according to a press release issued by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
–IANS
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