China and The United Nations - The Republic of China in The United Nations

The Republic of China in The United Nations

As one of the "Big Four" allies in World War II (China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the Republic of China (ROC) was one of the founding members of the United Nations. President Franklin Roosevelt had acknowledged China's war effort in World War II and stated his desire to allow China to "play its proper role in maintaining peace and prosperity" in the world, even though China was not socially influential or militarily strong. Thus, despite opposition from other leaders, especially Winston Churchill, China became a permanent member of the Security Council from its creation in 1945. In 1949, the Communist Party of China seized power in mainland China and declared the People's Republic of China (PRC), claiming to have replaced the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China and the ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan (which it gained control of in 1945 at the end of WWII), Quemoy Island, and the Matsu Islands.

Until 1991, the ROC also actively claimed to be the sole legitimate government of China, and during the 1950s and 1960s this claim was accepted by the United States and most of its allies. While the PRC was an ally of the Soviet Union, the U.S. sought to prevent the Communist bloc from gaining another permanent seat in the Security Council. To protest the exclusion of the PRC, Soviet representatives boycotted the UN from January to August 1950 and their absence allowed for the intervention of UN military forces in Korea.

In 1952, the ROC complained to the UN against the Soviet Union for violating the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance of 14 August 1945 and the Charter of the United Nations. The United Nations General Assembly has found that the Soviet Union prevented the National Government of the ROC from re-establishing Chinese authority in Manchuria after Japan surrendered and gave military and economic aid to the Chinese Communists, who founded the PRC in 1949, against the National Government of the ROC. Resolution 505 was passed to condemn the Soviet Union with 25 countries supporting, 9 countries opposing, 24 countries abstaining, and 2 countries non-voting.

The ROC used its veto once — on 13 December 1955, the ROC representative cast a veto to stop the admission of the Mongolian People's Republic to the United Nations on the grounds that all of Mongolia was part of China. Mongolia's application had been tabled at the UN on 24 June 1946, but had been blocked by Western countries, as part of a protracted Cold War dispute about the admission of new members to the UN. The General Assembly, by Resolution 918 (X) of 8 December 1955, had recommended to the Security Council that this dispute should be ended by the admission, in a single resolution, of a list of eighteen countries. On 14 December, endorsing a compromise proposal from the Soviet union, the Council and the Assembly approved sixteen countries, omitting Mongolia and Japan from the list. This postponed the admission of Mongolia until 1961, when the Soviet Union agreed to lift its veto on the admission of Mauritania, in return for the admission of Mongolia. Faced with pressure from nearly all the other African countries, the ROC relented under protest. Mongolia and Mauritania were both admitted to the UN on 27 October 1961.

From the 1960s onwards, nations friendly to the PRC, led by the People's Republic of Albania under Enver Hoxha, moved an annual resolution in the General Assembly to expel the "representatives of Chiang Kai-shek" (an implicit reference to the ROC) and permit the PRC to occupy the China seat at the UN. Every year the United States was able to assemble a majority of votes to block this resolution. But the admission of newly independent developing nations in the 1960s gradually turned the General Assembly from being Western-dominated to being dominated by countries sympathetic to Beijing. In addition, over the years increasing numbers of Western countries chose the PRC over the ROC (notwithstanding the position taken by the USA).

As a result of these trends, on October 25, 1971, Resolution 2758 was passed by the General Assembly with 76 countries supporting, 35 countries opposing, 17 countries abstaining, and 3 countries non-voting, withdrawing recognition of the ROC as the legitimate government of China, and recognizing the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China. PRC received support from two-thirds of all United Nations' members including approval by the Security Council members excluding the ROC. The ROC lost not only its Security Council seat, but any representation in the UN.

The General Assembly Resolution declared "that the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations". Because this resolution was on an issue of credentials rather than one of membership, it was possible to bypass the Security Council where the United States could have used its veto.

Voting records of the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 505 and 2758

Voting records of the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 505 and 2758
Member state	Resolution 505	Resolution 2758
AFGHANISTAN	Abstention	Yes
ALBANIA	Not member state yet	Yes
ALGERIA	Not member state yet	Yes
ARGENTINA	Abstention	Abstention
AUSTRALIA	Abstention	No
AUSTRIA	Not member state yet	Yes
BAHRAIN	Not member state yet	Abstention
BARBADOS	Not member state yet	Abstention
BELGIUM	Abstention	Yes
BHUTAN	Not member state yet	Yes
BOLIVIA	Yes	No
BOTSWANA	Not member state yet	Yes
BRAZIL	Yes	No
BULGARIA	Not member state yet	Yes
BURMA	No	Yes
BURUNDI	Not member state yet	Yes
BYELORUSSIAN SSR	No	Yes
CAMEROON	Not member state yet	Yes
CANADA	Abstention	Yes
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC	Not member state yet	No
CEYLON	Not member state yet	Yes
CHAD	Not member state yet	No
CHILE	Yes	Yes
CHINA	Yes	Non-voting
COLOMBIA	Yes	Abstention
CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE)	Not member state yet	Yes
CONGO (LEOPOLDVILLE)	Not member state yet	No
COSTA RICA	Yes	No
CUBA	Yes	Yes
CYPRUS	Not member state yet	Abstention
CZECHOSLOVAKIA	No	Yes
DAHOMEY	Not member state yet	No
DEMOCRATIC YEMEN	Not member state yet	Yes
DENMARK	Abstention	Yes
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC	Yes	No
ECUADOR	Yes	Yes
EGYPT	Abstention	Yes
EL SALVADOR	Non-voting	No
EQUATORIAL GUINEA	Not member state yet	Yes
ETHIOPIA	Abstention	Yes
FIJI	Not member state yet	Abstention
FINLAND	Not member state yet	Yes
FRANCE	Abstention	Yes
GABON	Not member state yet	No
GAMBIA	Not member state yet	No
GHANA	Not member state yet	Yes
GREECE	Yes	Abstention
GUATEMALA	Abstention	No
GUINEA	Not member state yet	Yes
GUYANA	Not member state yet	Yes
HAITI	Yes	No
HONDURAS	Yes	No
HUNGARY	Not member state yet	Yes
ICELAND	Abstention	Yes
INDIA	No	Yes
INDONESIA	No	Abstention
IRAN	Abstention	Yes
IRAQ	Yes	Yes
IRELAND	Not member state yet	Yes
ISRAEL	No	Yes
ITALY	Not member state yet	Yes
IVORY COAST	Not member state yet	No
JAMAICA	Not member state yet	Abstention
JAPAN	Not member state yet	No
JORDAN	Not member state yet	Abstention
KENYA	Not member state yet	Yes
KHMER REPUBLIC	Not member state yet	No
KUWAIT	Not member state yet	Yes
LAOS	Not member state yet	Yes
LEBANON	Yes	Abstention
LESOTHO	Not member state yet	No
LIBERIA	Yes	No
LIBYAN ARAB REPUBLIC	Not member state yet	Yes
LUXEMBOURG	Abstention	Abstention
MADAGASCAR	Not member state yet	No
MALAWI	Not member state yet	No
MALAYSIA	Not member state yet	Yes
MALDIVES	Not member state yet	Non-voting
MALI	Not member state yet	Yes
MALTA	Not member state yet	No
MAURITANIA	Not member state yet	Yes
MAURITIUS	Not member state yet	Abstention
MEXICO	Abstention	Yes
MONGOLIA	Not member state yet	Yes
MOROCCO	Not member state yet	Yes
NEPAL	Not member state yet	Yes
NETHERLANDS	Abstention	Yes
NEW ZEALAND	Abstention	No
NICARAGUA	Yes	No
NIGER	Not member state yet	No
NIGERIA	Not member state yet	Yes
NORWAY	Abstention	Yes
OMAN	Not member state yet	Non-voting
PAKISTAN	Abstention	Yes
PANAMA	Yes	Abstention
PARAGUAY	Yes	No
PERU	Yes	Yes
PHILIPPINES	Yes	No
POLAND	No	Yes
PORTUGAL	Not member state yet	Yes
QATAR	Not member state yet	Abstention
ROMANIA	Not member state yet	Yes
RWANDA	Not member state yet	Yes
SAUDI ARABIA	Abstention	No
SENEGAL	Not member state yet	Yes
SIERRA LEONE	Not member state yet	Yes
SINGAPORE	Not member state yet	Yes
SOMALIA	Not member state yet	Yes
SOUTH AFRICA (UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA in 1952)	Non-voting	No
SPAIN	Not member state yet	Abstention
SUDAN	Not member state yet	Yes
SWAZILAND	Not member state yet	No
SWEDEN	Abstention	Yes
SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC (SYRIA in 1952)	Abstention	Yes
THAILAND	Yes	Abstention
TOGO	Not member state yet	Yes
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO	Not member state yet	Yes
TUNISIA	Not member state yet	Yes
TURKEY	Yes	Yes
UGANDA	Not member state yet	Yes
UKRAINIAN SSR	No	Yes
UNITED KINGDOM	Abstention	Yes
UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA	Not member state yet	Yes
UNITED STATES	Yes	No
UPPER VOLTA	Not member state yet	No
URUGUAY	Yes	No
USSR	No	Yes
VENEZUELA	Yes	No
YEMEN	Abstention	Yes
YUGOSLAVIA	Abstention	Yes
ZAMBIA	Not member state yet	Yes

Since 1991 the ROC (now commonly known as Taiwan) has re-applied for UN membership to represent the people of Taiwan and its outlying islands only, under such names as "The Republic of China (Taiwan)", "The Republic of China on Taiwan", and most recently (in July 2007, under DPP President Chen Shui-bian) as simply "Taiwan". The ROC has also requested that the UN consider the issue of its representation in other ways, such as granting it status as a "non-member entity", a position currently held by Palestine. Because of the opposition of the PRC which is backed by the majority of UN member-states which follow the One-China policy advocated by the PRC, all such applications have been denied. The ROC continues to call on the international body to recognize the rights of the 23 million people of Taiwan, who since 1971 have received no representation in the UN (except that which the PRC claims to provide), or in its related international affiliates (except, the World Health Assembly which the ROC has participated in as an observer under the name Chinese Taipei since 2009 on an "annual-invite basis").

On 27 July 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed ROC's most recent application for UN membership while meeting in California with Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger:

...membership into the UN ultimately needs to be decided by the Member States of the United Nations. Membership is given to a sovereign country. The position of the United Nations is that the People's Republic of China is representing the whole of China as the sole and legitimate representative Government of China. The decision until now about the wish of the people in Taiwan to join the United Nations has been decided on that basis. The resolution that you just mentioned is clearly mentioning that the Government of China is the sole and legitimate Government and the position of the United Nations is that Taiwan is part of China.

Ban Ki-moon came under fire for this statement from the ROC and, it is speculated, also via non-official channels from the US. The ROC stated that Resolution 2758 merely transferred the UN seat from the ROC to the PRC, but did not address the issue of Taiwan's representation in the UN. The ROC emphasized that the PRC government has never held jurisdiction over Taiwan and that the United Nations has never taken a formal stance regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan. There are unconfirmed reports that Ban's comments prompted the US to restate its position regarding the status of Taiwan. A Heritage Foundation article suggests that the US may have presented a démarche stating among others that:

If the UN Secretariat insists on describing Taiwan as a part of the PRC, or on using nomenclature for Taiwan that implies such status, the United States will be obliged to disassociate itself on a national basis from such position."

The Wall Street Journal has criticized Ban Ki-moon for rejecting the ROC's July 2007 application and regarded Ban's interpretation of Resolution 2758 (that Taiwan was part of China) as erroneous. Nevertheless, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's statement reflected long-standing UN convention and is mirrored in other documents promulgated by the United Nations. For example, the UN's "Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties, Handbook", 2003 (a publication which predated his tenure in Office) states:

egarding the Taiwan Province of China, the Secretary-General follows the General Assembly’s guidance incorporated in resolution 2758 (XXVI)of the General Assembly of 25 October 1971 on the restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations. The General Assembly decided to recognize the representatives of the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations. Hence, instruments received from the Taiwan Province of China will not be accepted by the Secretary-General in his capacity as depositary.