China drops plan for UN vote on "Taiwan is part of China"

Sep 5, 2007, 7:55 GMT

Taipei - China, under pressure from the United States, has dropped the plan to initiate a United Nations vote on 'Taiwan is part of China,' a Taiwan newspaper said on Wednesday.

The China Times, in a dispatch from Washington DC, said China has canceled the plan for the UN vote. China now says that it is UN members' consensus that Taiwan is part of China, so there is no need for a vote.

In a nine-point clarification, the US told the UN that 'Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China' is not the consensus of the majority UN members, and is not the consistent policy of the US.

Washington has conveyed this stance to both the UN and Taipei, the mass-circulation Chinese-language paper said.

China originally planned to ask UN members to vote on 'Taiwan is part of China' to block Taiwan's bid to join the UN. Taiwan has been seeking to join the UN since 1993 but stepped up its campaign this year by applying to join the UN as a new country, called 'Taiwan,' with President Chen Shui-bian signing the application which was delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban rejected Taipei's application, saying the Taiwan issue was solved when the UN passed Resolution 2758 in 1971 to expel the Republic of China (ROC) and accept the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The ROC government lost China to the Chinese Communists in 1949 - when it fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile, still called the ROC - but continued to hold China's UN seat until 1971.

Taiwan launched a campaign to rejoin the UN under the name of ROC in 1993, but has failed each year due to opposition from China which claims Taiwan is part of China and the Taiwan issue was solved by Resolution 2758.

China is particularly worried this year because Taiwan is applying for UN membership as 'Taiwan,' which causes China to fear that Taiwan might change its name from ROC to Taiwan to seek formal independence from China.

Most of the 192 UN members recognize China and only 24 countries recognize Taiwan.

The Taiwan issue might be a main topic in the upcoming summit between US President George W Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao, held on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Sydney on Thursday.

Taiwan will be closely monitoring the Bush-Hu talk to see if there are changes in the US and China's policies towards Taiwan.

If the Bush-Hu talk is detrimental to Taiwan, President Chen Shui-bian would react in his video conference with US think tanks Thursday evening. Chen might declare October 25, the day the UN expelled Taiwan, as 'Taiwan Join UN Day,' the United Evening News said.

But analysts said that China will not make Taiwan its top issue at the APEC summit as the 21 leaders have more urgent issue to discuss - climate change, anti-terrorism, trade and bilateral cooperation.

On Wednesday, while meeting with overseas Chinese and the Chinese embassy's staff in the Australian capital Canberra, Hu reiterated Beijing's policy of seeking Taiwan-China unification and promoting stability in the Taiwan Strait.

'In recent days Taiwan has been carrying out splitist activities by seeking to rejoin the UN and preparing to hold a referendum on joining UN. While we strive for peaceful reunification, we absolutely will not tolerate anyone, in any form, separating Taiwan from the motherland,' he warned.

Both Bush and Hu have already arrived in Australia for the APEC leaders' summit to be held on Saturday and Sunday.

As China bars Taiwan's president from attending the APEC summit, President Chen will send Stan Shih, founder of Taiwan's computer giant Acer Group, as his envoy to the summit. Shih will depart for Sydney on Thursday.