Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Wang Guangya expressed China's firm opposition to the request by several countries to consider the "Taiwan participation in the UN" issue at the upcoming session of the General Assembly in September.

Wang branded the requests "a gross encroachment on China's internal affairs."

In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday, Wang said that the UN is an intergovernmental organization composed of sovereign states. As a part of China, Taiwan is not eligible to participate in the UN or any of its specialized agencies.

Chad and a few other countries had addressed two letters to Annan, requesting that the issue of "Taiwan participation in the United Nations" be considered at the upcoming session of the General Assembly. They also requested the consideration of the "proactive role of the United Nations in maintaining peace in the Taiwan Straits."

Criticizing such a move as a "brazen violation" of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and in defiance of the General Assembly's Resolution 2758, Wang said the Chinese government and people strongly condemn and oppose such a gross encroachment on China's internal affairs.

"Taiwan is a part of China's territory and it has never been a country. There is only one China in the world, and China's sovereignty and territorial integrity brook no division," Wang said in the letter.

Although reunification has yet to be realized between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, the "one China" policy has not changed, Wang added, saying it is also the principle that the UN has consistently adhered to.

In 1971, the UN General Assembly's 26th session adopted, by an overwhelming majority, Resolution 2758, which stipulated unequivocally that representatives of the government of the People's Republic of China are the only legitimate representatives of China to the UN.

Since 1993, the general committees of successive sessions of the General Assembly have all declined to include "Taiwan's participation in the UN" on the General Assembly's agenda.

Wang said that in recent years, significant and complex changes have taken place in Taiwan, where the "Taiwan independence" secessionists have intensified their activities, threatening the peaceful and stable development of cross-Straits relations. "This has increasingly become the biggest obstacle to the growth of cross-Straits relations as well as the biggest immediate threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits," he said.

(China Daily August 17, 2005)