Taiwan stops seeking UN membership, turns to UN organizations

Aug 19, 2009, 2:09 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan, in a major policy change, will stop seeking to join the United Nations at the upcoming UN General Assembly but will try to join some UN organizations, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

In line with President Ma Ying-jeou's call for diplomatic truce with China, along with pragmatic reasons, Taiwan will stop mobilizing its diplomatic allies to ask the UN General Assembly to discuss Taiwan's membership but will seek to join some UN organizations, the United Daily News said.

The 64th UN General Assembly will open on September 15 in New York, and its general debate will be held from September 23-30.

The UN agencies Taipei seeks to join are the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, the paper said, quoting an unnamed official.

The News said that joining WMO has special urgency for Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot triggered landslides and killed some 500 mountain villagers on August 8.

The Republic of China, as Taiwan is legally named, was a founding member of WMO but left the organization after the United Nations expelled Taipei to accept Beijing as the legitimate representative of China in 1971.

In 1993, Taiwan launched an international campaign to return to the UN, but the bid has failed each year due to opposition from China, which is one of the five permanent members of the UN General Assembly and regards Taiwan as China's breakaway province.

So far, Taiwan has succeeded only in joining the World Health Organization in 2002 and won observer status at the World Health Assembly in May.

With cross-strait ties improving since Ma took office in May 2008, China agreed to consider Taiwan's desire to join international organizations, but it must be under the 'one-China' principle which means there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China.