Spanish
Taiwan accused China on Wednesday of attempting to create a "so-called legal basis" to justify a "future armed aggression" against the island by "distorting" a United Nations resolution, amid the escalation of disputes between Taipei and Beijing over the sovereignty of this territory.
In a statement released on Tuesday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that UN Resolution 2758, adopted in October 1971 by the General Assembly and recognizing the People's Republic as the sole legitimate representative of China to this body, also supports Beijing's sovereignty over Taiwan.
"The resolution makes it clear that there is only one China in the world and that the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate representative of all of China, including the Taiwan region. There are no 'two Chinas' nor 'one China, one Taiwan'," the text pointed out.
In response, the island's Chancellery published this Wednesday a lengthy statement in which it accuses China of perpetrating a "deliberate deception of the international community, with the purpose of altering the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and creating a supposed legal basis for a future armed aggression against Taiwan".
The Foreign Ministry recalled that resolution 2758 "never mentioned Taiwan nor determined its sovereignty, much less declared that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China", nor did it "grant legal basis for the People's Republic of China to represent Taiwan and its people in the UN and its specialized agencies".
In Taipei's opinion, the UN secretariat, "by submitting for a long time to the pressure of China", has "misinterpreted" the content of the resolution, "repressing the international participation of the Republic of China (official name of Taiwan) and trying to restrict the freedom of choice of other countries".
"This practice not only contradicts the principle of universality of the UN Charter, but also highlights the bias and incapacity of said organization," denounced the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry, adding that the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China "are not subordinate to each other" and that Beijing "has no right to represent Taiwan" on the international stage.
In China's original statement, riddled with references to the Cold War and criticisms of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist forces who took refuge in Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war in 1949, Beijing warns that any attempt to undermine resolution 2758 "constitutes not only a challenge to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also a challenge to the authority of the UN."
"Taiwan's status as part of Chinese territory has never changed and will never change. Any attempt to reverse history and separate Taiwan from China once again will never be accepted by the 1.4 billion Chinese people nor supported by the international community," stated the Foreign Ministry of the Asian giant.
