Taiwan makes a breakthrough

It’s one of the more obscure arms of the United Nations, but the International Civil Aviation Organization is the venue for a breakthrough in the decades-long rivalry between China’s Communists and Taiwan’s Nationalists. The ICAO is meeting in Montreal for an assembly scheduled to last until Oct. 4. And for the first time since the UN kicked out Chiang Kai-shek’s Taiwan-based Republic of China in 1971, there is a Taiwanese representative in attendance.

For Taiwan, long accustomed to international isolation, this is a major development. The island has diplomatic relations with only 23 countries. The most significant is the Vatican, which has long been at odds with the People’s Republic of China over the Communist government’s hostility to the Catholic Church. The other governments that recognize Taiwan are poor and small, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as a few in Africa and Oceania.

The Taiwanese have been trying for years to break out of their diplomatic isolation and have targeted the ICAO. The success winning “international support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation is greatly appreciated,” Taiwanese Transport Minister Yeh Kuang-Shih wrote in a column in Aviation Week. “Taiwan has for many years strived to participate in ICAO. Our call for inclusion in the organization has been acknowledged around the world.”

Which is one reason the DPP is wary. Indeed, for China skeptics in Taiwan’s opposition, the ICAO participation is a setback, not a breakthrough. The Taipei Times newspaper, for instance, reported DPP lawmaker Lin Chia-lung bemoaning China’s role in Taiwan’s Montreal debut. The statement by the ICAO president “was a clear message to the international community that invitations for Taiwan to participate in international activities must go through China,” the paper reported Lin saying.

Meanwhile, air traffic between the two sides is increasing rapidly. It was only in 2008 that flights could go directly from one side of the Taiwan Strait to the other without having to go through Hong Kong airspace. Now so many people are flying between the mainland and Taiwan, airlines are clamoring for more space at Chinese airports.

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