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The Chinese regime is counting on the success of its diplomatic strategy to render the Taiwanese people invisible and their aspirations for autonomy illegitimate in the eyes of the international community.

The United Nations Violates the Taiwanese People’s Human Rights



Photo: Hong Kong Free Press

The United Nations is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) this year. But when it comes to living up to key human rights set forth in the UDHR in its own operations, the UN has fallen far short under pressure from the Chinese Communist regime.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Article 2 states that “no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”

The UN bureaucracy’s treatment of Taiwan’s nearly 24 million people as personae non gratae violates these fundamental human rights.

Taiwan has not been permitted to participate in any UN activities, including attendance as an observer at the World Health Organization’s annual forum at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung strongly objected. "As a professional international health body,” he said, “the World Health Organization should serve the health and welfare of all humanity and not capitulate to the political interests of a certain member."

That “certain member” is obviously the Chinese Communist regime. It demands that Taiwanese citizens be excluded from participation in any UN bodies unless Taiwan accepts that it is part of "One China" ruled from Beijing.

Taiwanese reporters have not been allowed to attend UN press briefings to ask questions. Even Taiwanese tourists who lack an official government ID issued by a UN member state are prohibited from entering the UN premises to take a visitors’ tour. IDs issued by the Taiwanese government do not count although Taiwanese passports are good enough for entry into the UN’s host country, the United States.

The UN human rights Geneva office, of all places, discriminated against a Taiwanese professor and three students in violation of their human rights under Article 2 of the UDHR by denying them permission to visit its public gallery. The Hong Kong Free Press, reporting on this incident in 2017, noted that when the professor met the next day with Director-General Michael Møller of the UN’s Geneva office to seek an explanation, she was told that “the situation with Taiwanese visitors changed because of the ‘one China policy.’” The professor wanted to know whether this means “that everyone not from a UN member state… [like] exiles and stateless people, will not have any chance to seek help? Then what is the point of your OHCHR [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights]?” Good question, which neither the Director-General nor any other UN official has been able to answer.

The Hong Kong Free Press itself may not remain truly free much longer as China's national security law increases its stranglehold on freedom of the press and expression in Hong Kong.


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The spokesperson for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was asked at the UN headquarters' March 27th press briefing to explain why Taiwanese citizens are not even allowed into the UN headquarters building to take a tour. He responded that “The policy of the UN is that the premises of UN headquarters are open to people with identifications of Member States of the UN.” He later expounded that “a government-issued ID from a Member State of the United Nations” is the requirement for entering the UN building. (Emphasis added) This is a catch-22 since Taiwan could never become a member state of the UN representing the Taiwanese people, or even have observer status privileges, in the face of implacable opposition from the Chinese regime.

The Secretary General’s spokesperson was unable to cite the specific source of the UN bureaucracy’s authority to impose such an exclusionary requirement, although he referred obliquely to “the General Assembly resolution passed in [1971] on the One China policy.”

UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, adopted in 1971, set forth the UN member states’ decision to recognize the representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations.” The resolution provided that “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek,” the leader of the Republic of China, would be expelled “from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.”

Nothing in this resolution said that the UN member states were expelling the Taiwanese people from humankind, extinguishing their right of self-determination, or stripping them of their other basic human rights. Nothing in the resolution said anything about prohibiting Taiwanese citizens from participating in or observing UN proceedings or even taking a tour of UN facilities without the approval of the Chinese Communist regime. Nevertheless, in 2007, former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, citing Resolution 2758, declared that “the United Nations considers Taiwan for all purposes to be an integral part of the People's Republic of China." (Emphasis added)


The UN system continues to this day to treat the Taiwanese people as vassals of the Chinese Communist regime.

Responding to further questions from reporters on March 29th regarding the right of the Taiwanese people to participate in UN activities or even enter a UN facility as a tourist, the UN Secretary General’s spokesperson danced around the issue. He also refused to say whether Secretary General Guterres was planning to meet informally outside of UN headquarters - perhaps at a restaurant or privately at his residence - with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen while she is in New York. Such a meeting with the Secretary General would be highly unlikely for fear of retaliation against the UN if the Chinese regime ever got wind of the meeting.

Barring Taiwanese citizens from having anything to do with the UN, even as tourists, is part of the PRC’s policy to cast Taiwan as a pariah in the international community. Using an economic carrot and stick strategy, the PRC just recently succeeded in causing yet another of the few remaining countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan to sever them - Honduras.

“The PRC has over time seen success in normalizing its stance on Taiwan within UN institutions and in getting a plurality of countries to back its views—which then bolsters its argument that there is an international consensus on its claim to the island,” the policy organization known as the German Marshall Fund concluded in its analysis entitled “The Distortion of UN Resolution 2758 and Limits on Taiwan’s Access to the United Nations.”

The Chinese regime is counting on the success of its diplomatic strategy to render the Taiwanese people invisible and their aspirations for autonomy illegitimate in the eyes of the international community. This will pave the way for the regime to “reunify” Taiwan with mainland China by force, if necessary, without the kind of outcry from most UN member states that Russia experienced after it invaded Ukraine.

And the United Nations will have been a willing accomplice.



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Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist -- Bio and Archives

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.


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