But they all know that the emperor wears no clothes. The bid is a doomed, and is an exercise in futility. The fate is preordained. But none has the courage to tell the truth. That’s the folly of the U.N. bid.

This week, the United Nations rejected Taiwan’s application to become a member of the world body on grounds of the world body’s “one China” policy and its recognition of Beijing as the sole legal government of all of China.

That should not surprise anyone, including President Chen. Since 1993 when Lee Teng-hui was in power, Taiwan has applied annually for U.N. membership under the name of the Republic of China, the official name of this country, without any success. What is surprising this year is the swiftness of the rejection. The application, using the name of Taiwan instead of the ROC for the first time, was returned by the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs less than a week after it was submitted.

In the past, the application was at least given a brief debate in the General Affairs Committee. This year, it was thrown back without even going through the first step. The bid was nipped in the bud.

Why such unusual efficiency, especially by a bureaucracy famous for inaction and pussyfooting? It may seem that the U.N. was saying the emperor wears no clothes. Besides the world body’s one China policy, based a resolution adopted in October 1971 that switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the United Nations believes it has plenty of reasons to dismiss the application. Simply put, it is a non-issue.

Legally, the admission of a new member requires a majority vote of the 193 member states. Taiwan presently is recognized by 24 countries. More importantly, Beijing wields veto power over the issue. To overcome this legal hurdle is a mission impossible.

Politically, President Chen’s bid to join the U.N. does not enjoy support from the United States, which is Taiwan’s most important supporter. Washington tends to regard Chen’s move as one that attempts to alter unilaterally the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.

But President Chen, who has only eight months before his eviction from the Presidential Palace, appears unfazed. He said after the debacle that he would put the referendum on the same day as the presidential elections next March.

If such a referendum does take place in disregard of warnings from Beijing and Washington, stability in the Taiwan Strait will be in serious doubt. That’s why Adm. Timothy J.Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, testified recently before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that Chen Shui-bian’s rhetoric “does not help” the cross-strait situation.

Warnings from Washington and Beijing would not deter President Chen from waging a high-stake political gamble. If his Democratic Progressive Party loses the 2008 election, he may well become Taiwan’s Chun Doo Hwan or the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos. He is bound to lose everything he has accumulated during his eight years in power.

If he keeps charging ahead with the referendum on joining the U.N. as an independent Taiwan instead of the ROC, the move could provoke Beijing to take drastic actions that endanger the peace and security of Taiwan. Beijing is worried that the referendum could lead eventually to a referendum on Taiwan independence — a red line that Beijing will do everything to prevent, including the use of non-peaceful means.

There is another point to the U.N. folly. The result of the referendum has no binding force. The only effect is “to let our voice be heard,” as President Chen has rightly pointed out. The world has gotten an earful in the past 14 years.

In waging the campaign, Chen has taken the moral high ground. It is the “mainstream opinion,” as the ruling party’s standard bearer, former premier Frank Hsieh said this week in Washington. Hsieh’s rival Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang has to echo the “mainstream opinion” to woo middle-of-the road voters.

It is undeniable that Taiwan’s 23 million people need representation in the U.N. It is also true that the 1971 U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2758 failed to resolve the issue of Taiwan’s representation when it expelled the ROC from the world body to make room for the PRC. Throughout the U.N.’s history, divided nations are duly represented, such as North Korea and South Korea, or the two Germanys before their reunification, Self-ruled Taiwan deserves a seat in the world body.

Holding a referendum doesn’t make practical sense, but having Taiwan’s voice “heard” does not help, either. The workable approach is to resume cross-strait dialogue as the first step, as Frank Hsieh said this week. The two sides need to build mutual trust which has been reduced to nil since Chen won the 2000 elections. Taiwan’s representation in the United Nations, as well as other U.N.-affiliated organizations, is impossible without the acquiescence of Beijing. This is simply the international reality that Taiwan has to face.

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