The Biden administration said that it backs full UN participation by Taiwan further reinforcing the notion that the U.S. will eventually recognize Taiwan as separate from the Chinese communist mainland, but heightening tensions between the U.S. and China.
China’s Global Times accused the U.S. of opening a “new offensive” on Taiwan after Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for to give Taiwan a greater role at the UN https://t.co/UMfRzavxHU
— Bloomberg (@business) October 27, 2021
“The fact that Taiwan participated robustly in certain UN specialized agencies for the vast majority of the past 50 years is evidence of the value the international community places in Taiwan’s contributions,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, according to The Hill, supporting his contention that the issue of the Taiwan’s U.N. participation was pragmatic not political.
The comments from Blinken come as communist China celebrates the 50-year anniversary of inclusion in the UN, marked by speeches from the communist country claiming to have sole sovereignty over Taiwan while warning the U.S. over Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN.
Calling China’s communist government “the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations,” Chinese president Xi Jinping said “China has always pursued an independent foreign policy of peace, upheld justice and resolutely opposed hegemonism and power politics,” during a celebration of the anniversary, in a veiled critique of the U.S., according to Bloomberg.
Taiwan is an independent nation off the coast of China where Chinese nationalists fled after communists took over the mainland.
The U.S. has long favored a “one China” policy which would eventually see Taiwan and China reunify, but recent Chinese aggression in places like Hong Kong and a crackdown by authoritarian hardliners like Xi inside China, have increasingly made that policy untenable.
Since 1971, the U.S. has recognized China as the country’s sole representative at the UN.
Still, China’s Global Times, a state-controlled publication, issued an editorial that blasted Blinken’s comments, taunting the U.S. decline in “national strength.”
“The U.S.’ national strength has greatly lost its relative advantage, so the cards of trade and human rights Washington plays to counter China have almost no effect at all,” the article read, according to Yahoo News..
“Meanwhile, the military deterrence from the Chinese mainland is also containing the Taiwan card the U.S. plays,” it continued. “The U.S. then has come to this cheap shot as a ‘new weapon’ to launch an alternative offensive against China.”
