If Taiwan was part of the international club, would the country have the progressive stance and freedoms it now enjoys?
The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/16
By: Colin Alexander
Credit: REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Taiwan’s recent drive towards greater participation in the World Health Organisation
Photo Credit: Reuters/達志影像
Taiwan is intensifying efforts to try and take part in the World Health Organization.
(WHO) provides an opportunity for a wider discussion about modern diplomacy and its motives.
The continued marginalization of Taiwan from most international fora appears to cause the island’s government and population a great deal of stress and anxiety, with their derecognition by the United Nations (UN) in 1971 a major blow to their legitimacy as a nation-state. It is this marginalization and desire for formal recognition by international governmental organisations that passively and actively motivates a considerable amount of the Taiwan government’s diplomatic focus.
In international relations terms Taiwan’s diplomatic situation is a product of the formation of the UN, membership to which subsequently became an effective ratifier of formal statehood. The presence of the UN in international affairs has also reflected a movement away from the “declaratory” approach to diplomatic recognition described by the Montevideo Convention of 1933 to a more ‘constitutive’ approach. [FULL STORY]T
