Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian on Thursday blasted China for blocking its bid to join the United Nations, after Beijing and Washington voiced concerns over a planned referendum on UN membership.
"Due to China's ruthless boycott and suppression, Taiwan cannot become a member of the UN," Chen said in a video conference with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "The People's Republic of China does not represent the 23 million Taiwanese people who deserve proper representation at the UN, who deserve to apply for membership with equal status."
Earlier, after talks in Sydney, US President George W. Bush and China's Hu Jintao warned Taipei that its proposed vote on whether to apply for UN membership under the name "Taiwan" was provocative. "Taiwan is not part of the PRC (China), Taiwan is a sovereign country and its sovereignty belongs to the 23 million Taiwanese people," Chen said in response.
"This is a fact and the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. We do not need anyone to tell us that Taiwan is not a state." The Taiwanese leader accused Beijing of putting pressure on the UN to "unilaterally alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait." He said previous attempts to join the UN under different names had failed.
"In the past we made concessions in order to join the UN... but that only resulted in more suppression from China. "This forces us to apply for UN membership under the name Taiwan to highlight Taiwan's sovereignty and to defend the status quo in the Taiwan Strait from being unilaterally altered by China,"he said. Chen vowed to press ahead with the proposed referendum despite fresh objections from Beijing and Washington.
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