ALLOW TAIWAN INTO THE UNITED NATIONS -- (BY LORNA HAHN) (Extension of Remarks - August 06, 1993) --- HON. TIMOTHY J. PENNY in the House of Representatives FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 1993
- Mr. PENNY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include in the Congressional Record an op-ed published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on July 24, 1993, which does an excellent job of outlining the reasons that the Republic of China, Taiwan, should be allowed back into the United Nations. Taiwan was a member of the United Nations--and a permanent member of the Security Council--from 1945 to 1971 when it was replaced by the People's Republic of China. That decision was correct at the time, but it's now time for the United Nations to allow both countries to have a voice in this important international organization.
[FROM THE RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, JULY 24, 1993] (BY LORNA HAHN) With its operations growing ever more extensive and expensive, and its members growing ever more reluctant to pay for them, the United Nations faces a financial crisis. It is therefore time for the UN to face some new facts of international life and turn to Taiwan, a country able and willing to contribute to the UN if only the UN would let it.
As President Clinton observed last December at the Little Rock Economic Summit, Taiwan (which he visited four times as governor) has more foreign exchange reserves than any other country on Earth--over $80 billion at the time. Today, it is over $90 billion. This wealth, along with Taiwanese technical and medical expertise, could obviously be useful to the UN in Bosnia, Cambodia, Mozambique, and other disaster areas--as it is in the numerous Third World and Eastern European nations to which Taiwan extends bilateral assistance.
Taiwan's resources have not been tapped by the UN, however, because the People's Republic of China opposes any official dealings with the Republic of China (Taiwan), which it replaced in the UN in 1971 as the representative of all of China (including Taiwan). Beijing further claims that admitting Taiwan to the UN would threaten its position that there is only one China that will one day reunify.
China's behavior might make sense if (1) Taiwan were still ruled by the same regime that the Communists long ago defeated and the UN long ago expelled; (2) Taiwan's authorities were still enemies of the PRC; (3) Beijing itself had not given de facto recognition to the reality of one China with two governments; (4) Taiwan contested China's position on unity; (5) diplomatic ostracism of Taiwan were strengthening this position; and (6) no formula could be found by which the UN--or at least some of its agencies--could accommodate both Beijing and Taipei. None of the above, however, is the case today.
Although the Republic of China is the juridical continuation of the Kuomintang regime that the Communists replaced in 1949, it has long ceased to be the repressive government of a group of exiles bent on reconquering the mainland. Thanks to sweeping reforms initiated by President Chiang Kai-shek's son and successor Chiang Ching-Kuo, and accelerated by current President Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan today has a representative and democratic government. Although the Kuomintang still rules, it does so because it received a majority of votes last
- December in what were universally hailed as free and fair legislative elections.
- Starting in 1987, when Taipei first allowed visits to family members on the mainland, people-to-people exchanges for academic, cultural, and other activities have grown exponentially. Trade and communications links have flourished, and over $7 billion Taiwanese investment dollars have fueled south China's economic boom. President Lee has formally renounced the use of force for settling disputes with the mainland, recognized that the Communists do indeed control it, and established both a cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Commission and a National Unification Council to oversee relations.
- This rapprochement would have been impossible if Taiwan did not openly share Beijing's `prerequisite' concept for one China destined to be reunified--and if Beijing had not tacitly admitted that this single China has another government (albeit one whose name it will not utter). In other words, the two sides are closer together in fact than Beijing has thus far admitted in theory.
- Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates independence, has been rapidly gaining in popularity largely because, increasing numbers of Taiwanese, angered at the humiliating isolation imposed on them by Beijing, accept the DPP's premise that the only way Taiwan can achieve international respectability is by going its own way completely. (`One China, One Taiwan.') The obvious way for China to counter this argument would be by letting the Republic of China (Taiwan) return to the international community as the legitimate government of the part of China that it actually controls. Beijing could do so by simply expanding on its current modes of co-existence.
- All this suggests that with some prodding--possibly from Washington--Beijing, might be persuaded to enable Taiwan to enter those UN organs where it could do the most good, under a compromise name such as `Chinese Republic of Taiwan.' If China agreed, then it would be furthering the cause of reunification, favorably impressing the many U.S. Congressmen who wish to have Taiwan contributing to the UN, and winning the gratitude of needy people throughout the world.
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