Taiwan Rejects Beijing's Claims, Accuses China of 'Mischaracterising' UN Resolution

Taiwan strongly denied China's claim that it must be represented in the United Nations as "Taiwan, Province of China."

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) rejected Beijing's assertions by pointing out that the international community has long recognized the different realities of democratic Taiwan and authoritarian China as two independent entities.

In a statement issued on Friday, the MAC emphasized that UN Resolution 2758 makes no reference to Taiwan, and neither does it claim that Taiwan belongs to China.

Taiwan's Foreign Affairs Minister, Lin Chia-lung, seconded this position by saying that Beijing has been systematically misreading UN Resolution 2758 to further its claim on Taiwan. He noted that several countries, and especially Western democracies, have made it clear that the resolution only refers to China's UN representation and mentions nothing about Taiwan.

This view has been reaffirmed by numerous democratic governments, including the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada, as well as the European Parliament in official declarations and resolutions, Lin said.

In Lin's view, China is trying to present the so-called "Taiwan issue" as an internal matter and also assert the Taiwan Strait as its internal waters. This, he claimed, gives Beijing a pretext to annex Taiwan and deter foreign intervention. He also characterized these as part of China's hybrid warfare tactics designed to erode international support for Taiwan, according to Taiwanese newspaper Taipei Times.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing a press conference on Friday during the third session of the 14th National People's Congress, reaffirmed Beijing's position, claiming that "Taiwan, Province of China" is the sole official mention of Taiwan in the UN.

"Taiwan was never a nation in the past, and it will never be one in the future," Wang asserted.

He argued that UN Resolution 2758 had finally settled China's representation in the UN, thus removing the possibility of recognizing "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan."

Wang cautioned that any move to seek "Taiwan independence" would prove to be fruitless and counter-productive, further stating that attempts to utilize Taiwan as a means to contain China would be unsuccessful. He emphasized that reunification of China with Taiwan was inevitable and could not be prevented.

Simultaneously, U.S. senators in February charged China with misinterpreting UN Resolution 2758 to single out Taiwan. In reply, they proposed a bipartisan resolution restating Washington's pledge to defending Taiwan.

The resolution is against China's actions to deny Taiwan's significant engagement in international organizations. The resolution also claims that Beijing has "weaponized" UN Resolution 2758 to manipulate history and exclude Taiwan, based on a press release by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.