The Democratic Progresssive Party calls for 1 million to rally for United Nations bid

The rally will be held in the southern city of Kaohsiung, a stronghold of the pro-independence DPP, on Sept. 15, three days before the United Nations opens its annual General Assembly in New York, the official said.

"Our goal is to draw as many as one million people to the event, hoping Taiwanese people's determination to join the international organization can be fully reflected at the rally," he added.

The rally was part of a series of activities in a decision made at a DPP Central Standing Committee meeting Wednesday.

The committee also announced that it plans to seek 1.2 million endorsement signatures before Oct. 15 to underscore Taiwan's determination to enter the world body as a full member despite the UN's recent rejection of President Chen Shui-bian's personal letters requesting U.N. membership for the country under the name of Taiwan.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that UN membership is only granted to sovereign countries and that the U.N. considers Taiwan as "a part of China."

Despite the setback, the DPP is now planning to mobilize people around the world who support Taiwan's bid to enter the world body under the name of Taiwan to express their support.

In addition, the DPP urged Internet users to submit creative works, in video or audio form, to relay the Taiwan people's desire to join the UN as a full member to every corner of the world.

The DPP is also working on the plan of holding a national UN referendum to consolidate its supporters for upcoming legislative and presidential with the UN issue.

President Chen reiterated yesterday the importance of holding a nationwide referendum on the country's bid to join the United Nations under the name of Taiwan.

Noting that the Taiwan people are determined to choose their own way of their own free will, Chen claimed that a UN membership bid referendum must be held.

He made the statements in the southern Pingtung County while campaigning for DPP legislative candidate Su Chen-ching.

Officials assigned to New York to push the UN membership project said they were not surprised by the return of President Chen's personal letters to apply for the membership.

Such result was fully anticipated, one of the them said.

An opposition Kuomintang (KMT) official claimed that President Chen is courting harm to Taiwan by asking China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya, who was the rotating president of the U.N. Security Council for July, to reconsider Taiwan's bid to join the world body in a July 27 letter,

Chang Rung-kung, deputy chief of the KMT's Policy Coordination Committee, accused Chen of seeking political gain for the ruling DPP by subjecting the county to humiliation in the international community.

He described Chen as "ignorant" in his belief that his letter to Wang, and a similar July 27 letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, could cast the country's dispute with China into the international limelight.

He likened the president's move to "shoving the Taiwan people under the wheels of a car."

Chang accused the president of having learned nothing from his diplomatic bungles.

He made the remarks after a spokesman for Wang said in New York Wednesday that Wang returned Chen's letter July 31 before his term as Security Council chief ended.

Ban had not yet acted on Chen's letter, but his spokesman said Thursday that the U.N. Secretariat has not changed its position since it returned July 23 a similar letter from Chen in which the president asked for Taiwan U.N. membership under the name of Taiwan.

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