Members of the European Parliament have thrown their weight behind Taiwan’s bid to join the United Nations. They also urged the European Union to ‘take stance against China’s alleged intimidation against Taiwan’. The demand from the European Parliament cross-party group came on the eve of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
During a video conference with Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan’s bid for UN membership the leader of the second biggest group in the EP, ALDE, Graham Watson said: ‘Taiwan’s application once again highlights the need for the UN to become more democratic, representative and effective’. Watson’s words were strongly backed by the Polish MEP Konrad Szymanksi (UEN Group) who told the conference, ‘the fact that Taiwan has made several failed attempts to join the UN says a lot about the UN itself and highlights the need for the UN to reform’.
In French Socialist MEP Paulo Casaca’s opinion’ Taiwan deserves to be a UN member as it could now boast a highly successful economy and had proved that it is committed to peace, democracy and freedom of the press’.
His colleague, UK EPP-ED deputy Charles Tannock, questioned whether any of the 27 member states would ‘break rank’ and speak out against the EU’s continued support of the so-called ‘One-China’ policy. He also stressed that ‘it seems strange that there is a huge rush to resolve the Kosovo issue yet the Taiwan issue cannot be raised in the UN’.
On September 21, after a marathon debate of four hours that involved 140 speakers, the UN General Assembly decided to exclude the issue of Taiwan’s UN representation from the agenda. General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim ruled that that the item should not be included in the agenda on the ground that UN members states could not reach a consensus.
The United States, Japan and Canada did not take a stance on the issue. The United Kingdom and France, which were in favour of the excluding, stressed that Taiwan and China should seek a peaceful resolution to their differences through dialogues. Anyhow, ‘it was the first time that our UN bid received such a high level of attention from the international community’ said Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yang Tzu-pao after the discussion in the UN General Assembly. He regarded the silence during the meeting of the US, Japan and Canada as a ‘friendly response’.
