Taiwan: Dreaming For a Seat in the U.N.

For years, Taiwan has dreamt of being an independent state, but the People’s Republic of China would not allow this dream to become a reality. Thus, Taiwan has taken a different route for independence through applying for membership in the U.N., which can be seen in the image to the left. Unfortunately, the U.N. rejected Taiwan’s request for membership just last week. This was a disappointment for Taiwan because it was the 15th consecutive time that they have been rejected. Thus, I explored the blogsphere to seek out what many has to say about this matter. Within Blogger, I found a very interesting post from Taiwanese professor, Dr. T, from Soochow University. In his post, “Through the UN rejects Taiwan’s UN bid, we will never give up!” he seems very certain that Taiwan would find their way to the U.N. Therefore, I made comment on his blog to point out that Taiwan may be facing a few obstacles before it can rightfully take a seat in the U.N. Along with that, I found another blog post that caught my interest at Blog@Case. The blog post, “Taiwan-Why we continue to ignore it?” belonged to an alumnus of Case Western Reserve University. In his post, he was upset that the U.N. had rejected Taiwan’s bid, and he claimed that Taiwan is being overlooked because of China’s economic influence over the global community. Hence, I wanted to refute his claim that China may not be such a powerful influence over the global community.

Though the UN rejects Taiwan's UN bid, we will never give up!

My comment:

Through reading your post, I predict that it is going to be a difficult task for Taiwan to gain U.N. membership. We must take into consideration the U.N. resolution 2758 enacted in 1971, which recognizes the People’s Republic of China as the main U.N. representative of all China. The U.N. cannot ignore or suddenly change its resolution because of one country. If the U.N. did decide to give Taiwan a seat, it would undermine the U.N.’s governing power and cause uproar in China. As many may know, the U.N. does not have absolute power over the international community, thus it cannot retract its resolution without upsetting China. China, as many may know, has gained a lot of power over the years. They hold and produce most of the world’s goods. It is possible that China may either stop its export of these goods or it may launch a full missile attack on Taiwan if the U.N. agrees to Taiwan’s bid. Though I believe it is unjustly that Taiwan cannot participate in the U.N., we must look at the larger picture. This matter goes beyond the fact that Taiwan cannot get a seat in the U.N.; it concerns the order of the global community and the prevention of nuclear warfare between China and Taiwan. I supposed that Taiwan can continue their attempts, but I hope they consider the possible repercussions to their actions.

Taiwan - Why do we continue to ignore it?

My comment:

I do agree that Taiwan has demonstrated or represented itself as a sovereign state for years. By examining the eight criteria that makes a state independent, I have noticed that Taiwan fits most of these criteria. However, I thought there was one essential criterion that was missing from the list, political power. It is essential for a sovereign state to have the power to create and mandate laws onto its citizens if it wants to be considered as a sovereign state. Aside from that matter, I see that Taiwan has a few supporters as Taiwan tried to gain membership in the U.N. However, I noticed that these supporters do not have a strong presence in the global community. Not trying to be biased, I think the only way Taiwan can have the upper in hand in the U.N. situation is by forming allies with great powers such as Japan, Britain, and the U.S. These great powers have their own way of persuading the U.N. and possibly China. Even though China has an advantage over the U.S. because of trade, the U.S. will not sit back and allow China to dictate Taiwan -U.S. relations.

On the matter of China taking a military stance on Taiwan, it is unlikely that China would use military force. China knows that the global community will not allow such behavior. The U.N. would immediately place a sanction on China and mandate a cessation of trade with other nations. This would economically hurt China and they would not want to take that risk. After a while, China may just loosen its grasp on Taiwan and allow Taiwan to hold a seat the U.N. because China did allow Taiwan to hold presidential elections even if it went against China’s socialist system.