Taiwan’s China Post came out a few weeks ago against a referendum on Taiwan attempting to join the U.N. under the name, "Taiwan," saying the question is superfluous:
…everyone [in Taiwan] wants Taiwan to rejoin the United Nations, from which the representative of Chiang Kai-shek was ousted in 1971. As far as the United Nations is concerned, the question of Chinese representation has long been settled. In fact, the world body formally acknowledges Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic of China. As a result, if we want to accede to the United Nations, we have no alternative but to apply as Taiwan, which should be accepted by the world organization as an independent, sovereign state rather than a province of China. The people should not be asked to vote on an issue of whether their country should or shouldn’t try to acquire U.N. membership as ‘Taiwan.’ The answer is there before the question is asked. [Emphasis added]
When the China Post says "everyone" here wants to join the U.N. as "Taiwan", the casual reader is liable to think that they include themselves in that number. But if that were true, how can one explain their near-apoplectic response to the Chen administration’s efforts to add "Taiwan" to the names of state-owned enterprises?
In other words, how can the paper tell us with a straight face that they want to enter the U.N. under the name ‘Taiwan’, when only one or two months ago it was bitterly opposed to the creation of a Taiwan Postal Service?
The truth of the matter is that the China Post doesn’t want Taiwan to ever join the U.N. as ‘Taiwan’. That would smack too much of independence for their Greater China sensibilities. But rather than be men about that and admit it, they’d rather disingenuously claim that the result would be a foregone conclusion, and then call for a boycott of the referendum. That way, if enough of the electorate fails to vote, the initiative will go down in flames. Which is what they wanted all along.
Just remember that foregone conclusion the China Post talks about now. Because if the referendum fails, the paper will do a pirouette and claim without embarrassment that it failed not because of the boycott they themselves called for, but because the "people" never wanted to join the U.N. as ‘Taiwan’ in the first place.
That’s the little game the China Post and Taiwan’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) played during the 2004 referendum. It worked once, so why SHOULDN’T they try again?