It’s been a long tme since we’ve talked here about Taiwan, the mountainous island to China’s southeast. Here is a guest post by Jerome Keating that should certainly spark some lively debate.
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The True Shame of the ROC’s Lost UN Seat
Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
For the Republic of China (ROC) October 25, 1971 was a day of infamy. On that day, its world came tumbling down as the nations of the world rejected the legitimacy of its claim to rule China. With a vote of 55 for and 59 against and 15 abstentions, the countries of the United Nations (UN) decided that the “Important Question” rule did not apply to the credentials of who represented the people of China. Up until this time, the United States and the ROC had by this “important question” designation required that any changes in membership would need a two-thirds majority vote. This was a vote requirement that their dwindling majority of supporters could still use to keep the ROC in the UN. Now however, the end was near. Once this designation was lost, the UN members by a simple majority could vote to oust the Republic of China; and so, rather than be kicked out, the Republic of China withdrew from the United Nations.
Two key technicalities were evident. By focusing on credentials instead of membership, the proposal made by Albania could circumvent any veto. If the vote had been one of direct membership for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), then either the ROC or the United States could have used its Security Council veto to deny membership. The ROC had used this veto in 1955 when it refused to admit the People’s Republic of Mongolia. It did this on the grounds that Mongolia was part of the Republic of China. In 1960 Russia challenged this unrealistic claim of the ROC and threatened to retaliate by vetoing all in-coming African nations to expose it. The ROC backed off and Mongolia came in. (In an ironic twist of history those same African states would line up on the side of the PRC over the ROC.) The second technicality was in the ROC’s departure; the ROC could always say it chose to leave and technically left–before it was kicked out.
While many in the West felt it was a shame that the ROC, one of the founding members of the UN, should receive such “ignominious” treatment, for anyone who had watched the increasing erosion of support for the ROC from the 1950s on, it was inevitable and only a matter of time.
The real shame, however, was not in the UN deciding that the PRC, a country with over one quarter of the world’s population should be
allowed entrance to the UN. To deny it membership was unrealistic. The real shame was in the continued hoax that was perpetuated on the people of Taiwan. To grasp this one must follow the chain of events.
Taiwan was an unsettled question after World War II, even in the San Francisco Treaty that went into effect in 1952. Intelligentsia of Taiwan had petitioned for the right to join the UN as Taiwan after the war but this had been denied and/or forestalled by the US giving custodianship to the ROC. Keeping matters vague gave the US more options but it also created more problems. This would come back to haunt all.
Many point to the changing numbers in the ROC’s loss of UN support. As more and more third world and non-western countries entered the UN, they chose to recognize the PRC rather than the ROC as the true China. There is no denying this; the numbers were working against the ROC. From the 1950s when twice as many countries recognized the ROC as did the PRC, those numbers dropped until in the mid 60s when the ROC had only a ten country advantage. By 1971 the numbers favoring each were drawing dead even and tilting to the PRC.
One fact that is often neglected, however, is that by this time many western countries had already come to terms with the reality of the PRC over the ROC and that even the US was telegraphing its coming change in recognition.
Go back as far as January 6, 1950. Less than four months after Mao Tse-tung declared the People’s Republic of China in October 1949, the United Kingdom recognized the PRC and established diplomatic relations. Switzerland followed (1950) as did the four Scandinavian countries (1950-1954). In 1964, both France and Italy recognized the PRC. Thus by the end of 1964, many European countries and three of the five countries on the Security Council had officially recognized the PRC.
In 1966, Italy proposed that the United Nations settle the “two China” issue in its forum. Both the PRC and the ROC rejected this, each for their own reasons, but in hindsight, this would have been the time for the ROC to get an advantageous settlement. The ROC still had a ten vote majority among member states, and as was seen above the hand was writing on the wall in its dwindling support.
The US position was now also changing. In 1969, Richard Nixon had become President of the United States. Despite his strong anti-Communist reputation Nixon had written in 1967 that it was unrealistic for the nations of the world to not recognize and deal with the PRC. A few years later, in a 1970 interview with Time magazine, Nixon was also quoted as saying that if there was anything he wanted to do before he died, it was “to go to China.”
In April 1971, the American ping-pong team which was in Japan for the World Table Tennis Championship matches received a surprise invitation from PRC Premier Chou En-lai to visit China. They accepted and immediately went to China with several journalists. Later known as Ping-Pong Diplomacy, this surprise invitation and acceptance would provide a publicly acceptable ice-breaker between the PRC and the US.
In July of 1971, Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to Beijing to lay the groundwork for a proposed visit by Nixon to China. He would be back in Beijing on a second trip in October of 1971 when the crucial vote came up in the United Nations. Thus at what turned out to be the showdown vote, the US National Security Advisor was away finalizing Nixon’s upcoming trip to China (the “enemy”) and George Bush Senior was left holding the fort at the UN.
What about the dual representation issue? As was said, in hindsight, for the Kuomintang (KMT) who ruled Taiwan under martial law and as a one party state, the ideal time to gain this would have been by supporting Italy’s proposal in 1966. At this time, the PRC was not a member and had less clout. After 1971, the PRC could insist that there only be “one China.” The people of Taiwan of course had no say.
The US had floated the dual recognition idea again in early 1971 and the then ROC foreign minister Chou Shu-kai had let it be known to the ROC’s allies that it would be open to accepting it. Chou stipulated however that this was private knowledge and that the ROC could not let it be known back home that it openly supported dual recognition.
Retired ROC ambassador Loh I-cheng’s recollection differs slightly; he remembers that the official approval for dual representation was finally given by Chiang Kai-shek at the last minute on the last day and after all other options had failed. Both positions are possible since Chiang could let matters be discussed and keep the final say for himself. Regardless, it was only a matter of time that the ROC would lose its seat. Loh and Frederick Chien who was Director General of the Department of North American Affairs question whether the ROC could have held its seat too much longer even if it had withstood the challenge of October 25, 1971.
On February 27, 1972, the United States would issue the Shanghai Communique with the PRC; this was the very same communiqur that Kissinger and Chou En-lai had been drafting back when the UN vote was being taken in October 1971. By the communique, the US and China agreed to disagree on what was one China, but the communiqué did make “one China” part of future US parlance. In typical fashion, the US was vague on what one China meant and how that related to Taiwan.
Kissinger’s trademark Machiavellian willingness to neglect and disregard the rights and concerns of other countries and peoples to achieve his ends may come as a surprise to some. So eager were Kissinger and Nixon to make their mark in history that in the wording of the communique they were willing to concede more than they needed. Here, even Secretary of State William Rogers and the US State Department were kept in the dark on the text of the communique until the last minute and they protested its wording and how it ignored Taiwan.
The real shame of the October UN vote however still lay deeper. It is found in the often unexplored matter of why and how the ROC had been able to tell its allies that it could privately live with a two China settlement, but did not want to let this policy to be known back in Taiwan. One must explore why the ROC wanted to maintain this duplicity and whether the ROC’s allies did not grasp what this meant or whether they ignored it.
The ROC as a one party state of the Kuomintang (KMT) was no model of democracy. It had been ruthless in gaining and trying to hold power in China and it was more so when it came to Taiwan. As an implant on Taiwan after the war, the KMT could no longer deny the people of Taiwan the right to participation in government if there were “two Chinas.”
The hoax of the KMT’s claim to Taiwan depended on refusing to publicly admit that there could be two Chinas. Chiang Kai-shek’s megalomaniacal image of being the savior of China could also not withstand such an admission.
While the rest of the world was acknowledging the PRC, the people in Taiwan unfortunately had no idea of what was going on. Here where the KMT controlled the media, the schools, and the police force, the people were being told it was the rest of the world that was deceived. Only by maintaining the illusion that there was one China and KMT was its rightful heir could they claim their legitimacy to rule in Taiwan.
Examine the consequences of why the KMT could not admit that China was not theirs, that there could be two Chinas, or even could be one China and one Taiwan. With no claim to legitimacy, the KMT/ROC had no justification for maintaining martial law, no justification to maintain a one party state, and no justification for disallowing elections at a national level. With no claim to legitimacy, the KMT/ROC had no justification for keeping the Legislative Yuan (originally 760 members representing all the provinces of China) on the payroll, no justification to keep all the state assets it had seized, and no right to continue political arrests. The list goes on and on pointing out why the KMT could not publicly admit to “two Chinas” and thus free elections at home.
This is what really went down in October 1971. We are not talking about the confusion of a few years after WWII until legitimacy was sorted out. The ramifications of the great hoax become all the stronger when one realizes how much time had already passed (twenty-five years since the end of WWII), and how much time would have to pass until Taiwan became a democracy (another twenty-five years—1996). The Kaohsiung Incident (1979) would still be eight years away. It would be another sixteen years before martial law would finally end (1987). It would be another twenty plus years before the ROC would officially say that the Civil War it lost in 1949 was over (1992). It would be 1996 before the people of Taiwan could finally choose their own president.
There are numerous other issues to be sorted out here. Certainly in hindsight, no one questions that to deny the PRC entry into the UN in the 50s and 60s was unrealistic and wrong, but one wrong is not corrected by another. Hindsight also points to the UN’s ongoing mistreatment of the reality of Taiwan and Taiwan’s long struggle for recognition. As a viable democracy of twenty-three million people, Taiwan should not be a ping-pong ball.
Taiwan is a democracy with a population larger than 75% of the countries in the UN. Ironically under the principle of self-determination in the UN Charter, the island nation of Tuvalu (population 11,000 compared to Taiwan’s 23,000,000) recently entered the UN, yet Taiwan is still denied entry. The shame of 1971 is not in the loss of the ROC’s UN seat, but rather in how it points out that the people of Taiwan were denied entry into the UN in 1950, in 1971 and even now.
Jerome F. Keating Ph.D. has lived and worked in Taiwan for over sixteen years and is co-author of Island in the Stream, a Quick Case Study of Taiwan’s Complex History and other books. Other writings can be found at http://zen.sandiego.edu:8080/Jerome
1
By ACB
“a country with over one quarter of the world’s population”
Last time I looked, China ha just over 1/6th of the worlds populatin, not 1/4.
October 11, 2005 @ 1:10 am | Comment
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By Martyn
What with all the “missing” babies born over the last 25 years, i.e. people covering up their extra girls and, particularly boys, as they don’t want/can’t afford to pay the applicable fines – recent estimates have put China’s population at 1.5. billion. However, not even the central govt knows for sure.
October 11, 2005 @ 1:32 am | Comment
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By kevin
I look into the crystal ball and I see… many, many comments on this article. I don’t know how there are so few thus far.
Sorry, but I don’t have much to add. Just a prediction.
October 11, 2005 @ 3:43 am | Comment
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By richard
Actually, Kevin, maybe not, though I hope it does generate a lot of comments. It’s a good article, but it’s somewhat long for a blog post and readers might not have the attention span for it.
October 11, 2005 @ 3:46 am | Comment
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By Martyn
The obvious comparison is North and South Korea. The country split into Soviet-supported communist and U.S.-supported capitalist nations (like China) and yet they are both allowed a UN seat.
China even plays semantics with the names of the two Koreas just to make sure they are no comparisons. Whereas in places like Hong Kong, North and South Korea are translated into their Chinese equivilents but China gives the Koreas two completely different names (Chaoxian and Hanguo) not North and South Korea.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:15 am | Comment
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By kevin
That’s funny, I was thinking about this when I read the earlier post about scrapping the one china policy. i thought, well, china has relations with both south and north korea, why can’t people have relations with both china and taiwan?
i guess that would make too much sense.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:22 am | Comment
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By richard
What about Jerome’s key point, which I find compelling (though I’m not taking any sides yet):
It sounds so logical. But then, what seems logical to me when discussing Taiwan often doesnt seem logical to others, and vice-versa.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:24 am | Comment
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By richard
Kevin, stop making sense.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:25 am | Comment
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By Ivan
“…stop making sense…”
DAMN, Richard, you’ve just given me an earworm!
🙂
October 11, 2005 @ 4:32 am | Comment
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By Martyn
No Richard – it is totally logical and it is totally unfair that Taiwan should be made to suffer (literally if you remember SARS and how Beijing put politics before the lives of 23 million Taiwanese and delayed approval for the WHO people).
I suspect is has something to do with the Shanghai Communique of 1972 and China’s ridiculously high price for officially jumping in bed with the U.S. at the expense of the Soviets. I’m guessing that that took care of the initial framework that we still live with today.
Just because China says something – doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true….and you can quote me on that.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:35 am | Comment
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By chester
this is excellent academic summary of the “taiwan/un issue”.
as you can see, the taiwan seat in un and taiwan self-determination are far beyond a factual, historical account of objectivity and international treaties.
in addition to the “grander scale” historic events and cross-national politics, the usual discussions fall short on taiwan’s endemic social-political history (e.g. post colonial sociology, economic and government reforms) and the west’s priciple assertion of a modern nation/state’s definition as well as human rights.
The fact is, the UN and much of the world have denied or chosen to shun the Taiwan population’s rights, under the pressure of the PRC. What price in the compromise of values and deference to politicand economic gains? Hmmmm.
October 11, 2005 @ 4:41 am | Comment
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By bingfeng
The obvious comparison is North and South Korea. The country split into Soviet-supported communist and U.S.-supported capitalist nations (like China) and yet they are both allowed a UN seat.
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so martyn you agree that taiwan is split from china? taiwan is not an independent country from the beginning of the world?
October 11, 2005 @ 5:57 am | Comment
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By ZHJ
self-determination vs territorial integrity. When Corsicans, Basques, Chechens, Kurds, etc don’t have their own country, then Taiwanese, of all people in the world, shouldn’t have one either. Mentioning “self-determination” is legimizing separatism. The entire piece of Keating is not academic reasoning, but apologizing for Taiwan’s separatists.
Chiang was right: rather walk away than separate China.
October 11, 2005 @ 7:20 am | Comment
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By Jing
Martyn you are wrong about Chinese naming conventions for North and South Korea. The Chinese names are actually just translations of official Korean names. The official Korean name for South Korea is Taehan-min’guk (Da Han Min Guo in Chinese) Han’guk for short (Han Guo). Though the western translation of Republic of Korea seams to have dropped the honorific “Great”. The official Korean name for North Korea is Choson minjujuui inmin konghwaguk. A mouthful but really similar to the PRC’s name. In Chinese its Chaoxian Minzhuzuyi Renmin Gong He Guo. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Korean short form for the DPRK is simply Choson which is echoed in the Chinese usage of Chaoxian. No semantics being played.
October 11, 2005 @ 7:27 am | Comment
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By Filthy Stinking No.9
ZHJ … think you’re just aligning China with a whole pile of oppression … Lots of people are being oppressed and denied their right to self determination, all around the world … so why should anyone have that right? Well huh?
Good argument … shame it makes you look like a thug.
October 11, 2005 @ 9:17 am | Comment
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By davesgonechina
ZHJ said:
Hey, no one here as ever opposed Corsican, Basque, Chechen or Kurdish self-determination, as far as I can tell. I’d point out, ZHJ, that self-determination doesn’t necessarily have to involve a change in territoriality. The Kurds have proven willing to be part of forming a new Iraq, given certain compensations. Quebec has narrowly voted to stay part of Canada, given certain compensations. I’d say that these examples also bear out the fact that if you give people the freedom to advocate and push for separation, but create incentives for them not to, they tend to join the greater whole.
And I second FSN9: you honestly are saying that China should do it because the other kids are doing it?
If Russia jumped off a cliff, would China follow, ZHJ?
October 11, 2005 @ 9:22 am | Comment
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By Raj
I should also point out that Britain gave Northern Ireland the right to decide its own future – it chose to stay as part of the Union. Equally we allowed Scotland and Wales to decide whether they wanted regional political representation or not.
And we can also look at Kosovo – the people there are getting a vote on their future.
Also, all the examples given are irrelevant because they’re either part of another country’s political system or occupied. Taiwan is independent in every sense apart from having diplomatic recognition.
How many states in the world have all the political, judicial, military, etc independent functions that Taiwan does but no diplomatic recognition? Because that would be the only valid places to be compared with Taiwan.
October 11, 2005 @ 3:47 pm | Comment
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By Keir
I agree completely with Raj, feel Taiwan should be free, have a seat on the UN,allow aid during times of crisis which is blocked by a heartless China etc etc etc.
I have always pointed out the comparison with Britain – she it now claim Australia or Canada? But I do accept that this may be unfair. The UK disengaged fromthese countries because it was too difficult for it to govern such large distances. Almost the rest of the empire after WWII left all at once making a continued hold on them impossible. (Taiwan is but one). Kosovo is free because of foreign intervention which the Serbs DON’T accept but have no choice, and London was blackmailed by a relentless terror campaign by the IRA,plus having to continue to contribute to Ulster’s economic blackhole leading it to want to get rid of the province.
As I tellmy students in geo, there are always anomolies and China could be one. China has never stopped claiming Taiwan which is off its shores. Anyone know anything about its campaign to recover it during the Japanese occupation?
October 11, 2005 @ 5:25 pm | Comment
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By Keir
OK, I wrote the above PDQ, but I was on my way to work…
October 11, 2005 @ 6:27 pm | Comment
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By Johnny K
so martyn you agree that taiwan is split from china? taiwan is not an independent country from the beginning of the world?
Posted by: bingfeng at October 11, 2005 05:57 AM
Bingfeng, nations are not eternal. They change. As Ernest Renan, one of the, uh, godfathers or nationalism said, “nations are not eternal. They had their beginning and they will have their end.”
The United States of America (not to mention Canada, Australia…) “split” from Britain and was once part of Britain. But does that give Britain any legitimate claim to America today?
The connection that you trying to make (that Taiwan was once a part of China and therefore always a part of China) is a bad one. China has no greater right to claim Taiwan because it used to have it than Britain does to claim northern France…
Spain has to claim Mexico (or any part of South America)…
The Islamic Caliphate has to claim Spain
Norway has to claim Britain.
October 11, 2005 @ 7:10 pm | Comment
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By Ivan
dave said: “If Russia jumped off a cliff, would China follow?”
Actually that’s what DID happen. Russia jumped off a cliff in 1917 and China followed.
October 11, 2005 @ 7:59 pm | Comment
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By Kevin
Jing was quick to say that Martyn was wrong about the Chinese names, but I’m not so sure.
Different names are used for North and South Korea in Taiwan, so I am sure there must be some kind of political component to the names.
October 11, 2005 @ 9:17 pm | Comment
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By David
One obvious question – exactly what does Taiwan lose by not being in the UN? It’d be nice and all … but it hardly affects things that much.
There are related bodies which I think it’s important for Taiwan to be a member of (in particular the fact Taiwan can’t become a member of the WHO is ridiculous), but the main UN body is slightly irrelevant (IMHO). If Taiwan wants international recognition, then it’ll need to get individual *countries* to drop their One China support – not worry about recognition from an ineffective international body which gives the PRC the power of veto over anything it doesn’t like.
If the ROC had managed to stay in the UN when the PRC replaced it, I don’t think things would be much different nowadays – the PRC would still claim sovereignty over Taiwan, and would still be pushing its one china agenda.
October 12, 2005 @ 2:32 am | Comment
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By Thomas
Bingfeng,
Keep in mind that for most of Chinese history, the Chinese did not want Taiwan. That’s where barbarians lived and barbarians mean trouble. And when the Chinese did set up token ownership of the island, they 1) did not control vast swaths of the island…which were left to aborigines, 2) could not govern the parts they controlled effectively because of lack of manpower, 3) fiercely forbade or controlled immigration of Chinese to the island. Even under Chinese rule, Taiwan was held at a distance from the rest of China.
So hmmm….from the time some Ming at their twilight began to cross the strait forcing the Qing to set up a token government to the loss of Taiwan during the sino-japanese war….that is hardly an eternity. Many European countries controlled colonies longer than that. I would hardly say that China is justified in laying a claim based on the “we’ve always controlled Taiwan” argument.
October 12, 2005 @ 8:10 am | Comment
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By sun bin
Martyn,
1. About Chaoxian and Hanguo, there is some historical reason to it. China has always referred to them as North and South Chaoxian (taking the DPRK view). Until it established diplomatic relationship with SK (in the 1980s, i think). Then it changed Nan(South) Chaoxian to Hanguo. I think this was done to show respect/courtesy to S Korea.
2. 1.5bn? are you sure you believe these rumours? Where are the sources? Everyone, even those in the villages, has an ID card in China.
October 12, 2005 @ 12:35 pm | Comment
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By dougie acturus
Bingfeng, regardless of history, the majority of the the Taiwanese were born in an era devoid of all mainland influence, be it good or bad. With regards to independence, you should know by now what Taiwan believes in.
October 12, 2005 @ 1:04 pm | Comment
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By NYkrindc
I’ve read all the comments here and so far all I can say is that Keir came the closest to the identifying the crux of the issue. As he said earlier:
October 12, 2005 @ 6:33 pm | Comment
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By NYkrindc
Sorry I forgot to close the quote before posting. This should correct it. Again, my apologies.
I’ve read all the comments here and so far all I can say is that Keir came the closest to the identifying the crux of the issue. As he said earlier:
China sees the survival of Taiwan as an imposition of Western and Imperialist powers who meddled in the country’s future in the early half of the last century. Taiwan is a left over of that era, when China was weak. At the time, like Serbia although it did not accept the fact that the Kuomitang established itself in Taiwan, it had no choice but to live with it because the US provided Taiwan with a security guarantee. Now, as China grows stronger, it will do as it feels it is its right. It will reclaim Taiwan, to finally erase the humiliation of its past. Unlike Serbia, China still does not accept, and as time goes on it will be able to do something about it.
To tie this to Keir’s quote above: the reality is that Taiwan is free and has mantained that freedom because of foreign intervention, in the form of America’s defense guarantee. Initially China did not accept it, but had no choice, now and as more time passes it will develop the ability to make its choice.
October 12, 2005 @ 6:34 pm | Comment
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By Christopher
I must clarify first that I’m a noob on this matter.
My question is: Why was the ROC supported by most countries initially, after their defeat during the chinese civil war, and not the PRC? Was it simply because the PRC is synonymous to communism?
October 13, 2005 @ 4:09 am | Comment