Scholars debate Taiwan's U.N. bid

The participants claimed that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has not done enough in terms of constitution-making and changing the country’s name since 2000, when it first won the presidency.

They supported the U.N. and referendum but had differing views on the implications of the U.N. bid and Taiwan’s response to U.S. opposition.

“Responding in an emotional way and using emotional rhetoric to the U.S. opposition did no good for Taiwan at all. Prudence is preferred, “ said Chen Yi-shen, a research fellow at Academia Sinica.

“As a superpower, the U.S. fails to understand what the people of Taiwan want. Its ultimate concern is U.S. interests, not the values of democracy. Taiwan should seek direct dialogue with the American people, who have always been more courageous and who hold higher moral ground than the U.S. government,” according to Lo Chih-cheng, a politics professor at Soochow University.

The most important thing for Taiwan’s U.N. bid is to break away from the “one China principle, “ which is recognized by most countries in the world, Lo said.

“The referendum is, in fact, the first step of declaring Taiwan’s independence,” said Huang Chu-cheng, a law professor at National Tsing Hua University, explicitly contradicting the president and bolstering the reason for the U.S. objections.

“Contrary to what most people think and say, the objective of this bid and the referendum is to change the status quo, which is jeopardizing Taiwan’s national security because of the strategic and military imbalance between Taiwan and China,” he claimed.

“The failure in applying for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan basically means that Taiwan is ready to be a part of China,” according to Lee Ming-juinn,deputy secretary-general of the Taiwanese Society of International Law (TSIL).

The forum was organized by the TSIL and a number of other pro-independence groups.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email