From the founding member state of the Republic of China to the replacement of seats in 1971: Riyadh urged the lawyer community to counter Beijing's expanded interpretation of Resolution 2758

On September 5, Taiwan’s President Rae Chengde called on Taiwanese lawyers to take advantage of international legal exchange opportunities to explain to the international community the content and boundaries of the UN General Assembly resolution 2758 and counter Beijing’s long-standing expansion of the interpretation of the 1971 Chinese representative power resolution as the basis for Taiwan’s belonging to the People’s Republic of China.According to the President's SpeechIn addition to the infiltration of arms and intimidation against Taiwan, China has also misinterpreted Resolution 2758 internationally, and hopes that the lawyers will use their expertise to speak for Taiwan at home and abroad.

The key to this dispute is not the established fact that the People’s Republic of China has occupied the seat of the United Nations on behalf of “China” since 1971, but whether Beijing can further interpret the “representation of China” as “the United Nations has ruled that Taiwan belongs to the People’s Republic of China”. To answer this question, we must replace the United Nations in 1945, replace the representation in 1971 and put back the official arguments of Beijing today to the same chain of evidence.

The Government of the Republic of China participates on behalf of China in the creation of the United Nations

Historical data of the United NationsThe Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945 by the Government of the Republic of China on behalf of China and ratified on 28 September of the same year. The United Nations Treaty Database also records that the Government of the Republic of China continued to represent China at the United Nations until 25 October 1971.

This means that the People's Republic of China is not a government that represented "China" when the United Nations was founded in 1945.After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Government of the Republic of China continued to represent "China" to join the United Nations, and retained China's seat as a permanent member of the Security Council until 1971, when China's representative power changed fundamentally.

* 1971 replaced by "representative of China"

On October 25, 1971, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758.United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758Recognizing the representative of the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the “unique legitimate representative of China in the United Nations organizations”, restoring all rights of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations, and deciding to expel the “representative of Chiang Kai-shek” from the seats of the United Nations and its agencies.

After the implementation of the resolution, the Government of the People's Republic of China replaced the Government of the People's Republic of China as the representative of "China" at the United Nations and took over China's seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. Therefore, it is not accurate to pronounce resolution 2758 as "absolutely without legal or institutional effect."

But the change of representation does not automatically equate to Taiwan’s sovereign ruling. This is the core of today’s controversy.

The resolution does not decide on Taiwan’s sovereignty

The text of Resolution 2758 shows that there is no word "Taiwan" in the resolution, nor is it written "Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China", "The People's Republic of China has sovereignty over Taiwan" or "The Government of the People's Republic of China represents the people of Taiwan".

Beijing's official announcement todayChina's permanent delegation to the United Nations summarized the so-called one-China principle as: there is only one China in the world; Taiwan is an inseparable part of China's territory; and the Government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing the whole of China.

Comparing this set of statements with the original resolution item by item, one important difference can be seen:

• "The representative of the Government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate representative of China in the United Nations", which can be found directly in Resolution

2758.

• "Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China", which does not appear in the original text of Resolution

2758.

• "The Government of the People's Republic of China has the right to represent the People's Republic of Taiwan", which is not also written as an independent decision.

As a result, Beijing’s argument actually extends from “representation of China” to “Taiwan sovereignty” to “representation of Taiwan”.Beijing, of course, can make its own claims on Taiwan sovereignty, but can not only use the wording of Resolution 2758 to describe the latter two claims as the content that the United Nations General Assembly had explicitly voted in 1971.

Beijing itself acknowledged the name of China in 1945 as the Republic of China.

It is worth noting that Beijing's official position document on Resolution 2758 in recent years has also acknowledged that when the United Nations was founded in 1945, China's national name was the Republic of China. Beijing subsequently argued that what happened in 1949 was a new domestic regime replacing the old regime, so that the People's Republic of China inherited Chinese sovereignty and further incorporated Taiwan into this inheritance relationship.

This, on the other hand, makes the structure of the dispute clearer: in 1945 the Government of the Republic of China participated in the creation of the United Nations on behalf of China, and in 1971 the Government of the People's Republic of China acquired the representation of China, which can be based on the historical facts of the United Nations data verification; the real existence of the dispute is whether a government acquired the "representation of China in the United Nations", simultaneously means that the United Nations General Assembly has ruled that Taiwan belongs to the People's Republic of China.

Resolution 2758 did not make this decision in the corresponding wording.

Beijing uses Resolution 2758 to restrict Taiwan’s international space

This debate is not a purely historical or academic question. Beijing has long bound Resolution 2758 with its "one-in-one principle" and therefore opposes Taiwan's participation in the United Nations and relevant international organizations as a difference from the People's Republic of China.

If the full interpretation of Beijing is accepted, the logical result is that since the People's Republic of China has represented "the whole of China, including Taiwan", there is no question of Taiwan seeking international representation or participating in space separately.

*Why Reynolds asked the lawyer to intervene*

Rakhine’s decision to submit Resolution 2758 at the Lawyer’s Day Dinner was clearly targeted.President’s office data showed that the National Lawyer’s Federation has continued to participate in international exchanges such as the German International Lawyer Forum, the International Lawyer’s Association’s Annual Meeting and the Asian Law Society’s Annual Meeting in recent years. Rakhine’s hope is that lawyers will use these professional networks to explain Taiwan’s position, meaning that Taiwan is trying to bring the political defence dominated by the past foreign affairs sector further into the international legal community.

Once the argument returns to the legal text, Beijing’s interpretation has to face several questions that can be directly verified:

Where did Resolution 2758 decide on Taiwan’s sovereignty? where did the Resolution set the Government of the People’s Republic of China on behalf of the Taiwanese people? where did the Resolution write the complete “one-in-one principle” defined by Beijing today into a decision of the United Nations General Assembly?

At the same time, Taiwan must also acknowledge that Resolution 2758 indeed ended the institutional arrangements of the Government of the Republic of China to represent "China" in the United Nations. Only to separate the two questions "China's representation has been replaced" and "Is Taiwan's sovereignty has been decided by the resolution" can discussions return from the political slogan to the document itself.

From 1945 to 1971, the historical record has left a clear line.

In 1945, the Government of the People's Republic of China signed and ratified the Charter of the United Nations on behalf of China; after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Government of the People's Republic of China continued to represent China in the United Nations; and in 1971, Resolution 2758 replaced the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole representative of China in the United Nations.

These facts do not need to rely on the political slogans of any of the parties.The real need to continue to be tested is the step that Beijing subsequently added: The People’s Republic of China’s acquisition of the status of “China” as a representative of the United Nations is a matter clearly decided by Resolution 2758; whether Taiwan has thus become a part of the People’s Republic of China has not been confirmed in the same resolution.

The key to the future dispute over Resolution 2758 will not be who repeats the political stance more times, but whether the international community is willing to re-differentiate between two questions: Who represents China is a question already decided by the United Nations in 1971; who belongs to Taiwan sovereignty, but not the original Resolution 2758 decision made for the world.

Beijing can offer its own interpretation of Resolution 2758 and its own arguments on Taiwan’s sovereignty, but it can’t package its political arguments into legal conclusions written by the United Nations General Assembly in 1971 on the basis of a resolution that did not determine Taiwan’s sovereignty.