In the company of U.N. representatives from Taiwan's diplomatic allies, Taiwan's U.N. task force rendered the president's letter and application to Ban's office, an OOP press release quoted Chen Chi-mai as saying.
President Chen requested "the admission of Taiwan as a member of the United Nations" in accordance with Article 4 of the U.N. Charter and procedural rules of the Security Council and General Assembly, another July 20 OOP press release noted.
Chen argued that the international community disregarded Taiwanese people's efforts to pursue dignity and peace. Instead, the United Nations asked a nation seeking the universal values of freedom, democracy, human rights and peace to stay submissively mute even when its dignity was denied and its security threatened.
He claimed the United Nations had erected a wall around the nation and placed it under "political apartheid" by blocking its participation. "Such unfair treatment toward Taiwan is incomprehensible and unbearable," Chen declared in his letter.
Taiwanese people wanted to be a part of the international community and contribute to global peace and prosperity, Chen said, adding that he had the responsibility to realize their aspirations. Without Taiwan's participation, operation of the United Nations was incomplete, he stressed.
The president ended his letter by requesting that the application "be placed before the Security Council and the General Assembly for consideration" and reaffirming that the nation would accept and fulfill obligations stipulated in the U.N. Charter, the OOP stated.
The U.N. Office of Legal Affairs rejected Taiwan's membership application, according to a July 23 statement posted on the U.N. Chinese-language Web site. The OLA said its decision was based on U.N. Resolution 2758, which affirmed U.N. support for the "one-China" policy.
Turning down Taiwan's request to participate in the United Nations on the basis of Resolution 2758 was unacceptable, Kenneth Liao, director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, was quoted as saying in a July 24 report by Taiwan's Central News Agency. The U.N. Secretariat should immediately refer the nation's application to the Security Council and General Assembly rather than rejecting it, Liao said.
The resolution, passed in 1971, substituted the People's Republic of China for the Republic of China as the sole representative of China in the United Nations, Liao acknowledged, but it did not resolve the issue of representation of the Taiwanese people in the world body, the CNA quoted.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed regret after the request was rejected, another July 24 CNA report stated. MOFA Spokesperson David Wang said that citing Resolution 2758 was anachronistic, and that the U.N. Secretariat should review the resolution, the CNA reported.
In the future, the government would continue to ask its allies to urge the United Nations to take seriously Taiwan's unjust exclusion and its application for membership at every possible public occasion, including the General Assembly and various U.N. commissions, Wang said.
Write to Allen Hsu at allenhsu@mail.gio.gov.tw