An indignant Taiwan decried the United Nations' latest rejection of its bid for a seat on the world body as unfair yesterday after it was torpedoed by objections from the mainland and its allies.
Taipei also faulted the island's opposition parties for contributing to the failure, saying their promotion of active cross-strait exchanges had hampered the bid.
Foreign Minister Mark Chen Tan-sun said that after repeated snubs by the mainland, a committee of the UN General Assembly had again rejected two proposals to put the question of Taiwan joining the UN on the agenda for the assembly's 60th session, which opened yesterday. It was the 13th straight year that Taiwan's bid had been blocked.
'It is unfair for the committee dominated by [mainland] China and its allies to block our two proposals from being discussed in the general assembly,' Mr Chen told a news conference.
Taiwan again raised its long-standing argument that the UN was being unfair in depriving it of membership given its population of 23 million. But it added the claim this time around that the UN, as a world body with a peacekeeping mission, could not turn a blind eye to the growing military threat posed by the mainland.
The mainland denied it poses a threat to Taiwan, citing the healthy trade and investment volume across the Taiwan Strait as well as the huge number of Taiwanese visitors to the mainland each year.
