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Beijing pressures Taiwan to accept 'one China'

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May 17, 2000

 

BEIJING, MAY 16  (AP) - After thwarting a Taiwanese bid for observer status in the World Health Organization, China offered Tuesday to discuss Taiwan's participation in international activities if the island accepts that it is a part of China.

  

Maintaining pressure on Taiwanese President-elect Chen Shui-bian ahead of his inauguration Saturday, China's official Xinhua News Agency said the only way to ease tensions between the two sides was for Taiwan's new leadership to accept the "one China principle."

  

"Continuing to deny that Taiwan is a part of China, maintaining the position of 'Taiwan independence,' can only have disastrous consequences for relations," Xinhua said in a commentary. "Whoever does that will go down in history as a criminal of the Chinese people."

  

Chen, who was elected March 18, says he is willing to discuss the idea of 'one China' but not as a precondition for talks. But Beijing insists Taiwan must recognize the "one China principle" before talks can begin.

  

Beijing is suspicious of Chen because his Democratic Progressive Party favors independence for Taiwan, a move China says it would use force to prevent. Even though Taiwan and China have been ruled separately since they split amid civil war 51 years ago, Beijing says the two sides are part of one country that must be reunited.

  

To pressure Taiwan into talks on unification, China has used its diplomatic clout to isolate the island internationally. On Monday, China foiled Taiwan's fourth bid for observer status in United Nation's World Health Organization.

  

Beijing maintains that, as a part of China, Taiwan is not qualified to join international organizations which require members to be sovereign states. China and its allies repeated that argument before the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

  

But in its commentary, Xinhua said that under the one China principle, "every problem can be discussed."

  

Within that framework, Taiwan's participation in international economic, social and cultural activities that are "in keeping with its status," as well as "Taiwanese authorities' political standing," can be resolved through political negotiations in the course of peaceful unification, Xinhua said.

  

China has offered Taiwan a high degree of autonomy, similar to that granted the former British colony of Hong Kong, if it agrees to reunification. Taiwan has rejected the idea, saying it is a sovereign state, not a colony.

 


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