In September, lawmakers in both Australia and the Netherlands motioned to oppose Taiwan’s exclusion from the United Nations based on U.N. Resolution 2758. China has been using the Resolution to say they have the right to represent Taiwan internationally.
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Herel Hughes sits down with Maggie Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank. We first zoom in on the actual text in U.N. Resolution 2758, then zoom out to understand why Beijing’s growing global influence is a potential cause for concern.
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Herel Hughes sits down with Maggie Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think tank. We first zoom in on the actual text in U.N. Resolution 2758, then zoom out to understand why Beijing’s growing global influence is a potential cause for concern.
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00:00Welcome to Zoom In Zoom Out, your global look at news from Taiwan.
00:15I'm Haral Hughes.
00:16Australia and the Netherlands surprised the world in September when both countries sought
00:21clarification on a UN resolution, a resolution that supposedly excludes Taiwan's inclusion
00:27from the United Nations.
00:29That resolution is titled United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, which China has
00:35been using to say that the world aligns with its one China principle and Taiwan is an integral
00:41part of China.
00:42Today, to further discuss Taiwan's absence from international organizations and China's
00:46role in that, we're joined by Maggie Lewis, a professor at Seton Hall University and a
00:51member of Council on Foreign Relations.
00:53Maggie, welcome to the show.
00:55Well, thanks for having me.
00:57So just to begin, we've been referencing this UN resolution, UN Resolution 2758.
01:03Can you just tell us what is it?
01:05What happened in 1971 that led to its creation?
01:08Right.
01:09And first of all, we're going all the way back to 1971.
01:11I mean, this is before even the original Star Wars movie, right?
01:14This is not, it's so it's not new, but I think it's taken on renewed significance because
01:19of geopolitical events.
01:21And at that point in 1971, it was a very different time where the Republic of China at that point
01:27had still maintained a seat in the United Nations.
01:31And the People's Republic of China, which at that point was quite young, having just
01:35been founded in 1949, did not have a seat.
01:39However, the government then under Mao had been pushing to try to get a formal position
01:45in the UN, which required getting a large number of votes, that is a vote-based organization,
01:52and getting it so that there was a shift in the international view of what should be
01:57representing China within the UN.
02:00Now let's take a look at the actual wording of Resolution 2758.
02:04The resolution is directly addressing the General Assembly.
02:07And we want to focus on these last two paragraphs.
02:11Recognizing that the representatives of the government of the People's Republic of China
02:15are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations, and the People's Republic
02:20of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, decides to restore
02:25all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives
02:30of its government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel
02:36forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy
02:41at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it.
02:46So Maggie, what does that mean?
02:49Is there anything that is standing out to you about the wording?
02:52The main thing is what's not written on this page.
02:55You can look all day long at these one, two, three, four short paragraphs.
03:00Taiwan isn't mentioned at all.
03:03And this is something which I think, people, it's really helpful to go and actually read
03:08the document itself, which drives home that this was focused on the government, the representatives
03:14of Chiang Kai-shek, taking him out without taking on some deeper and more complicated
03:20issues about the Republic of China or what is Taiwan and what is its status.
03:26There were proposals that there could be a different way of structuring this, where,
03:31for example, two China solution, and that would have and did have some possibilities.
03:36Again, they didn't come to fruition, but the drafters were certainly aware, I would
03:42expect, of what they put in and what they didn't put in.
03:45So has there been a consensus on the meaning of the resolution moving forward?
03:50I think no, in the sense that what Beijing's view is and what has been pushed out is very
03:57different from certainly what the view has been here in Taipei, as well as from many
04:03other governments that have looked at this.
04:05So even though the wording seems very straightforward, I think this is one of those times where the
04:11geopolitics of it make it much more complicated than just what the black and white ink would
04:16look like.
04:17The point here was they were bound in the sense that that chair or chairs within the
04:22UN would now have different people coming to sit with them.
04:27But nothing in this resolution says how the countries, once they leave the UN space, how
04:34they have to interact with either Taiwan, Taipei, or with the People's Republic of China.
04:42But it would make a major shift as far as who was appointing people to show up with
04:47UN credentials, from everything from both the General Assembly to, of course, the Security
04:52Council, where China has a permanent seat, which is an extremely powerful position in
04:57the UN.
04:58As you mentioned, this resolution was passed in 1971.
05:01How has China been interpreting it since then?
05:04So at this point in 1971, China didn't have much in the way of external relations, right?
05:10This was in the time of the Cultural Revolution.
05:14China was almost completely closed off.
05:16I know from, as someone who studied law, that the generations before me, it was really the
05:23early 1970s that at least American law professors even started finding any inroads to go into
05:29China.
05:30So the immediate sort of China putting a message out in the world, that wasn't happening.
05:35And even as you got into the 1980s, it was still a fairly constrained outward push of
05:41any sort of narrative or external force.
05:45So I think one thing that's interesting is that everything old is new again, right?
05:49That suddenly, or at least in the last handful of years, this resolution, which has just
05:55been there all along, has really come to the forefront.
05:58That's new.
05:59Absolutely.
06:00Well, what about its use against Taiwan?
06:03And so this is something that I think I really appreciate when people actually go back to
06:08the text, right?
06:09Because if you just heard the way that the People's Republic of China speaks about this
06:14resolution, they've tried to intertwine it with the one China principle.
06:18Of course, the one China principle being there's one China, and the government is based in
06:23Beijing and Taiwan is part of that China.
06:26But I wish in some ways that the one China policies that countries like the U.S. have
06:32and others didn't sound so similar to the one China principle, at least here in English,
06:37because it's radically different.
06:38Nothing in here is about the sovereignty of Taiwan.
06:42It's not about what any sort of ruling power that Beijing has over Taiwan.
06:48But yet that has been very much the narrative that Beijing has been pushing out.
06:53We've seen a number of countries mention Taiwan's exclusion from the UN.
06:56Tonga's prime minister even called the United Nations hypocritical for it.
07:01And the U.S., Australia, and the Netherlands have all addressed the resolution directly,
07:05even asking for clarification on it.
07:07How do you interpret that?
07:08Is the tide turning for Taiwan and China?
07:11First, nothing needs to be resolved, right?
07:15This is just a question of interpreting something that was decided 15 plus years ago.
07:22So this is action, I think, to push back on a narrative, but it doesn't require any
07:27further action in the UN or even in domestic politics.
07:32That said, if a country wants to make a clear statement to not only to Beijing, but to countries
07:40that might be adhering to or at least interested in getting closer to Beijing's interpretation,
07:47and I think they're a very formal and forceful way to say that, is we're not just going to
07:52say that in our statements, we're actually going to take the next step to have some sort
07:56of formal resolution, whether it's in our parliament or whatever it might be.
08:01So this, I think, is just not wanting to lose ground as Beijing is pushing out that what
08:07you read here really is the one-China principle, when it's not.
08:12And the more Beijing says that, the more I think it's needed that there's vigilance to
08:17not let just hearing it a lot have that take on some credence.
08:25Now I want to zoom out a bit on China's growing ability to shape global narrative.
08:30So it's not just the UN that we've seen this in, we also see that China has significant
08:34control within Interpol, which is the world's largest international police force.
08:39So how is China exerting their influence there?
08:43To have a country that's becoming stronger economically and being more involved in the
08:49world to exert influence beyond its borders, we can find a gazillion examples of that in
08:54history.
08:55That alone is not surprising or particularly worrisome, that's what happens.
09:00Someone who studies international law and international norms, they change, they are
09:05not static.
09:07We've had a lot of continuity in the post-World War II international order with respect to
09:12human rights and whatnot, but international law is dynamic.
09:16It shifts, there's new treaties, there's customary international law.
09:19So something like Interpol, it too, it should change to a certain extent with the times.
09:25What are the concerns?
09:26When Interpol was created, we didn't worry as much about computer crimes, right?
09:30So this is something where having influence and that, we can expect that, but then how
09:35is that influence being asserted?
09:37So one thing that was interesting with Interpol is that Interpol meets, they have their big
09:42meetings.
09:43They did that about nine years ago in Beijing.
09:46Xi Jinping spoke to the Interpol General Assembly, which you don't get any higher recognition
09:52of this being an important meeting.
09:54And at that, when they met in Beijing, the Interpol's leadership passed a resolution
10:02and it was about what it takes to have membership in Interpol.
10:06And interestingly, one of the main things they highlighted is that you need to have
10:11an entity that is recognized places and looking at, do you have a seat in the UN as a key
10:19point for membership?
10:20So never in that Interpol resolution does it specifically mention Taiwan, yet essentially
10:26an invisible or not so invisible ink is Taiwan.
10:28So that's one way you're seeing, I think, the influence of the PRC and Interpol to make
10:33sure Taiwan is not in it.
10:36But you also see Interpol being interesting because it is a way to reach out of your borders
10:42to try to get back people you have accused of crimes.
10:46And Beijing has definitely been more vigorous in using Interpol for that.
10:51So I want to touch on that exactly.
10:52Does this mean China is able to enforce its laws on political dissidents who have fled
10:57abroad?
10:58Yeah.
10:59And again, here's a time that countries do reach outside their borders with criminal
11:02law.
11:03So if, and that can be a very good thing.
11:04We don't want to have a world where someone can commit a crime someplace and then flee
11:09to another country and say essentially the, you know, you can't touch me equivalent of
11:14playing a kid's game where there's a safe zone.
11:17And also there's times that people might, they might plot an attack from outside a country,
11:22but the actual harm might occur in a country.
11:25So these sort of transnational reaching, there's a lot of good reasons to do it.
11:30Where we get worried is when the reason a country is reaching out is not for what is
11:37generally seen as legitimate reasons of getting back someone who's engaged with fraud or,
11:42you know, human trafficking, but rather what is essentially a way to pull back people who
11:49disagree with the government and either using an excuse, accusing them of a crime or just
11:56finding, you know, just basically flat out saying to their friends, you don't, we don't
12:00need to tell you why, but we want this person back.
12:03Have we seen other states assisting China in this, in going after dissidents abroad?
12:08And it's not just about dissidents.
12:10China historically has had huge problems with corruption, still does, it's hard to quantify
12:14how much, but a lot of what Beijing has been trying to do is get back people who are accused
12:20of being corrupt and fleeing with a lot of money.
12:23It's getting harder to get out of China with your money and to get yourself out, but some
12:27of this is residual, people that fled 10 years ago, you know, more, and there there's
12:32an issue of even if there's very strong evidence that this person engaged in corruption in
12:37a way that it's not a political offense, countries also need to ask, are we okay sending this
12:42person back to China?
12:44What kind of process will they go through?
12:47Will there be a fair trial?
12:48Will there be a chance?
12:49So that's, you know, regardless, even if nothing political is on the table.
12:54And I think we see texture, you know, historically before Xi Jinping, we certainly had countries
12:58that were more willing to engage in legal assistance, both giving evidence, information,
13:04as well as sometimes extradition, actually sending people back.
13:08There certainly has been increased concern about that.
13:12The European Union has had decisions that are essentially saying we are extremely untrusting
13:18of what's going to happen with the process.
13:20Other countries are faster to get someone on a plane.
13:25And so what can Taiwan do?
13:27What can people outside of Beijing do to counter this narrative?
13:30And part of it is countering the narrative.
13:31And that's, you know, I love getting back to the text.
13:33You know, I'm a professor, like being clear about what happened historically and what
13:37did not, and making sure that there isn't a reframing that is departing from what history
13:43will actually support and the words on paper.
13:46So that's the narrative.
13:47You know, with respect to actual actions outside their borders, again, this is, I think, where
13:51lines need to be drawn and say, you know, we need to recognize that there will be times
13:56that countries operate in some way outside their borders.
13:59But if you're going to send someone to another country, you're going to let their government
14:02know why they're coming and get permission.
14:05Sovereignty is important.
14:06And those lines need to be respected.
14:08Well, thank you so much for your insights today.
14:10I really did learn a lot.
14:12Thanks for having me.
14:13Anytime you want to talk law, I'm here for it.
14:15This has been Zoom In Zoom Out.
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14:20We'll see you next time.