UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The latest attempt by Taiwan to gain recognition by the United Nations onto the agenda of the General Assembly has been defeated.
The matter was rejected, without a vote, Wednesday by the assembly's General Committee. It was Taipei's 12th consecutive failure to muster support.
The Republic of China on Taiwan, by a 1971 assembly resolution, was replaced by the Peoples Republic of China at the world organization and Beijing took over the ROC's position as a permanent member of the Security Council.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian Wednesday made a last minute appeal for U.N. recognition in a video conference held at a nearby New York City hotel. The United Nations barred the U.N. Correspondents Association from holding the teleconference in its club at U.N. World Headquarters in New York.
"Taiwan's absence in the United Nations has left its 23-million people without an internationally acknowledged identity, has turned them into international vagabonds and victims of political apartheid," Chen told U.N. and New York City reporters squeezed into a crowded conference room before the committee hearing.
