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Blinken Seeks Bigger Role for Taiwan at United Nations 

Blinken’s comments come after President Joe Biden said last week the U.S. was committed to defending Taiwan from a Chinese attack.

Blinken Seeks Bigger Role for Taiwan at United Nations 
A CH-47SD helicopter flies with a Taiwanese flag. (Photographer: I-Hwa Cheng/Bloomberg)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for other countries to join the U.S. in pressing to give Taiwan a greater role at the United Nations, as tensions with China over the island’s government rise.

The government in Beijing, which considers the island part of its territory, has blocked Taiwan’s participation in UN agencies such as the World Health Organization since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016 and refused to accept that Taiwan is part of “one China.” 

“Taiwan’s exclusion undermines the important work of the UN and its related bodies, all of which stand to benefit greatly from its contributions,” Blinken said in a statement Tuesday. “The fact that Taiwan participated robustly in certain UN specialized agencies for the vast majority of the past 50 years is evidence of the value the international community places in Taiwan’s contributions.” 

Blinken’s comments come after President Joe Biden said last week the U.S. was committed to defending Taiwan from a Chinese attack, in some of his strongest comments yet as the administration faces calls to clarify its stance on the democratically-ruled island. A White House spokesperson later clarified that Biden wasn’t announcing a change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan, which calls for supporting Taiwan’s self-defense and opposing unilateral changes in the status quo. 

The Biden administration has struggled to balance the demands of those seeking greater support for Taiwan and others worried about a potential military confrontation with nuclear-armed China. After Biden in August equated the U.S.’s security commitment to Taiwan with its formal alliances with nations such as Japan and South Korea, the administration also clarified that its position was unchanged. 

Despite the “tens of millions of passengers traveling annually through its airports,” Taiwan wasn’t represented at the International Civil Aviation Organization assembly, Blinken said. The same goes for the World Health Assembly, he said, where Taiwan is now absent “although we have much to learn from Taiwan’s world-class response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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