China has reiterated its interpretation of Resolution 2758 at the U.N. General Assembly, which it says prevents Taiwan's participation in the world body. Taiwan's foreign ministry has refuted this claim. To learn more about the way China uses Resolution 2758 in international politics, TaiwanPlus spoke with Professor Ja Ian Chong of the National University of Singapore.
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00:00Taiwan has responded to China's comments at the UN General Assembly that a UN resolution
00:05from decades ago gives Beijing the right to represent Taiwan in the global body.
00:30UN Resolution 2758 was passed unanimously by the General Assembly in 1971.
00:47It switched representation for China's seat at the organization from the Republic of China
00:51– that's Taiwan's official name – to the People's Republic of China, or PRC.
00:56Beijing has used that resolution in recent years to justify blocking Taiwan's participation
01:00at UN bodies such as the World Health Organization and in international sporting competitions,
01:06where Taiwan is usually required to participate under the name Chinese Taipei.
01:12For more on China's use of UN Resolution 2758 to prevent Taiwan's participation in
01:18the organization, our reporter Chris Goran spoke with Professor Ian Chong of the National
01:22University of Singapore.
01:25Has China always emphasized UN Resolution 2758 to justify its Taiwan claims, or has
01:31this ramped up over time?
01:32The use of UN Resolution 2758 to lay claim to Taiwan is a relatively new development.
01:39So previously the PRC had just laid claim to Taiwan based on history and so on and so
01:46forth.
01:47There was some reluctance to use it in previous periods because the resolution itself has
01:55no language referring to Taiwan.
01:56It is only about the representation of the China's seat at the United Nations.
02:03So the PRC, I think, is trying to create some sort of legal basis for its claim within international
02:09law, within the body of international law.
02:11But it could open the door for lots of other reinterpretations of lots of other things
02:16by other actors.
02:17That could create a lot more messiness that I'm not sure Beijing has fully anticipated.
02:22Has China's interpretation of the resolution been persuasive to other countries in the
02:27world?
02:28So states that pay attention to the issue, they do.
02:34And they're saying that this is a distortion of what is actually in the text.
02:37Now states that don't pay attention to cross-strait issues, and there are many of them, that would
02:44be most states in the world, I don't think they've really said stuff either way.
02:49There have been some legislatures, like the one in the Netherlands and Australia, have
02:53been pushing back to their own resolutions.
02:56And the US, I think, and Congress, there is some move in that direction.
03:00What about in Taiwan's domestic politics?
03:02How do the different political parties view this issue?
03:06So within the context of Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party has been calling for a resolution
03:13that basically rejects the PRC claim.
03:17The KMT has been emphasizing that they would only go along with something like that if
03:24the resolution includes language about readmitting the Republic of China into the United Nations.
03:31The ROC is Taiwan's official country name.
03:33I guess this part of the debate within Taiwan is how and what to enter the United Nations
03:41as, whether it's Taiwan, Republic of China, Republic of China, parenthesis Taiwan.
03:47Is this purely a cross-strait issue, or do you see something more going on here?
03:53I mean, the back and forth is on the one hand a cross-strait issue, but it does, I think,
03:58also highlight Beijing's effort to reinterpret a whole bunch of other international agreements.
04:04This includes UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, where it rejected arbitral
04:10tribunal that was convened under Annex 7, and then also the Sino-British Joint Declaration
04:17on Hong Kong.
04:18So the issue for the PRC is if they create a track record of reinterpreting texts outside
04:26of their original meaning, that could create larger commitment problems for them.
04:31When they make a promise, others would be more likely to second-guess or to wonder whether
04:37Beijing will keep to whatever they've said.