Taiwan and its diplomatic allies launched the nation's latest bid for UN entry on Thursday as the 61st UN General Assembly prepares to convene on Sept. 12, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) confirmed yesterday.
This marks the country's 14th consecutive bid for participation in the international body. All of its previous attempts have failed because of China's obstruction.
The proposal this year addresses "the question of the representation and participation of the 23 million people of Taiwan in the United Nations" and requests the inclusion of Taiwan's bid as a supplementary item to the agenda of the upcoming session of the General Assembly.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
In addition, a second proposal termed the "peace proposal" was also launched, asking the UN to take a more proactive role in maintaining peace and security in East Asia.
Director of MOFA's Department of International Organizations John Chen (
The second proposal "urges East Asian countries to settle disputes through peaceful means and encourages concerned countries in the region to take further steps toward military transparency and confidence-building."
To highlight the status of Taiwan, the wording in this year's proposal refers to the country's name as "Republic of China [Taiwan]" in the first instance only and thereafter refers to the nation as Taiwan.
This is in contrast to proposals in previous years where the "Republic of China" was used throughout the document to represent Taiwan, Chen said.
This year's proposal also directly asks the UN to "recognize" the right to representation of the 23 million people of Taiwan as opposed to requesting the UN to "study" the possibilities of Taiwanese being represented in the world body, reflecting a more proactive stance from the government in its pursuance of UN participation, Chen noted.
As part of the publicity campaign for this year's UN bid, the official said that the foreign ministry has been planning a video conference between President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the media and opinion leaders in the US before the convening of the General Assembly.
Previously, local media had reported that the president had voiced the idea that Taiwan should use the name of "Taiwan" in this year's UN bid.
Meanwhile, Andrew Hsia (夏立言), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in New York, yesterday said that the severance of official ties with Chad would not affect Taiwan's campaign to join the UN.
Taiwan will keep telling the UN that it is determined to be part of the UN family in spite of its recent loss of ties with Chad, he said.
This year, Taiwan's UN campaign will use the theme of "UN-HUMAN" to underscore the world body's "unhuman" treatment of Taiwan's people, said Hsia.
Last year, Taiwan campaigned on the theme of "UN-FAIR" and the UN turned out to be "unfair" by refusing to discuss Taiwan's representation in the organization and cutting short the time its allies had to speak for it.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS