The Chinese will not push it to the breaking piont unless they feel they have some real aces in the hole.
THE DRAGON'S FURY SERIES OF NOVELS
A Techno-thriller series about America and World War
Posted on 08/15/2004 11:09:23 PM PDT by yonif
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has written a rare letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, condemning Taiwan's most recent bid to join the world body and urging him to circulate it as a formal document among United Nations members.
Taiwan launched its 12th annual bid to join the United Nations this month, urging an end to its "political apartheid" in a proposal that has yet again angered Beijing, which has claimed sovereignty over the island since their split in 1949.
"The Taiwan authorities...are pushing cross-Strait ties to the brink of danger and seriously threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region," Zhang Yishan, China's envoy to the United Nations, told Annan in the letter.
Zhang urged Annan to circulate his letter as a formal document among U.N. members, according to the letter, which available on Monday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Web site.
Tension has been simmering since the re-election of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian in March. China is convinced he will push for formal independence during his second four-year term and China's 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army is readying for a possible showdown.
Beijing, which considers Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be returned to the fold, by force if necessary, sits on the five-member U.N. Security Council with veto power and has many more diplomatic allies than Taiwan's paltry 26.
Taipei insists it is a sovereign state.
Taiwan's bid this year to join the United Nations was brought by 15 of its allies, mostly small and poorer states in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific. A General Assembly committee is scheduled to review Taiwan's application bid on September 15.
Zhang condemned Taiwan's allies for "grossly interfering in China's internal affair" and wasting U.N. resources.
"As a part of China, Taiwan is fundamentally not qualified to 'participate in' the United Nations and its organisations under any name or pretext," Zhang said.
Some security analysts see the Taiwan Strait as the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia.
Zhang said China was committed to peaceful unification with Taiwan but would never tolerate the island formally declaring itself independent.
The question of U.N. membership has raged since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government lost a civil war to the communists on mainland China and fled to Taiwan, taking with him the Republic of China government.
Chiang held on to China's U.N. seat until 1971, when the General Assembly expelled Taipei and gave the seat to Beijing.
Taiwan has tried to join the United Nations every year since 1993, but China and its allies have blocked the initiatives.
The Chinese will not push it to the breaking piont unless they feel they have some real aces in the hole.
That is what Taiwan did after the split in 1949.
They renounced the PRC as the legitimate government for China. They vowed to retake it and they refused to acknowledge Mongolia since they thought that was belong to China and the PRC ceded it to the Russians.
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