Taiwan Matters!: Taiwan isn't China's

Say it out loud

What we at this blog have been saying all along has supposedly been said by US officials in a letter to the United Nations, quoted here in an FTV article via Sina.com:

美不接受台灣為PRC一部分

美國上禮拜才說出，台灣和中華民國都不是國家的話來，5日就傳出，美國寫信給聯合國說「不接受台灣是中華人民共和國一部份」的說法。藍綠對此都表示肯定，民進黨甚至說，要更加努力推動入聯公投。

[Tim Maddog translation:]
US doesn't accept that Taiwan is part of the PRC

The United States spoke out just last week to say that neither Taiwan nor the Republic of China are countries. News reports on September 5 said that the United States wrote a letter to the United Nations saying that it "does not accept that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China." The blue and green camps both confirmed the news. The DPP said it will exert even more effort to promote its planned referendum on joining the UN.

A DPA article titled "China drops plan for UN vote on 'Taiwan is part of China'" provides these details:

The China Times, in a dispatch from Washington DC, said China has canceled the plan for the UN vote. China now says that it is UN members' consensus that Taiwan is part of China, so there is no need for a vote.

In a nine-point clarification, the US told the UN that 'Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China' is not the consensus of the majority UN members, and is not the consistent policy of the US.

Washington has conveyed this stance to both the UN and Taipei, the mass-circulation Chinese-language paper said.

China originally planned to ask UN members to vote on 'Taiwan is part of China' to block Taiwan's bid to join the UN. Taiwan has been seeking to join the UN since 1993 but stepped up its campaign this year by applying to join the UN as a new country, called 'Taiwan,' with President Chen Shui-bian signing the application which was delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban rejected Taipei's application, saying the Taiwan issue was solved when the UN passed Resolution 2758 in 1971 to expel the Republic of China (ROC) and accept the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The ROC government lost China to the Chinese Communists in 1949 - when it fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile, still called the ROC - but continued to hold China's UN seat until 1971.

Note the complete rectification of the old false meme about "Taiwan and China" having "split in 1949." Now that's Journalism with a capital J! Whoever is responsible for that deserves some heavy-duty kudos.

This sounds like good news in so many ways, but prepare yourselves for the imminent wailing and gnashing of Chinese dentures.