WTO Approves Admission of Taiwan, One Day After China Was Approved

AP 18sep01

GENEVA -- Members of the World Trade Organization formally cleared Taiwan for admission Tuesday, a day after China was approved.

Terms for Taiwan's admission were completed 18 months ago, but the final decision was delayed because of a 1992 understanding that China would join first.

The 142 WTO governments on Tuesday approved a 1,200-page document setting out the terms for Taiwan's membership in the body that sets global rules on international trade.

"Joining the WTO has been the great hope of the nation's people, and it has enjoyed the common support of all the people," Taiwan's economic minister, Lin Hsin-yi, said in a news conference in Taipei moments later.

WTO Director-General Mike Moore welcomed the decision, saying: "With Chinese Taipei's membership, the WTO has taken yet another step toward achieving universal membership."

Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of Chinese territory, at first objected to Taiwan's joining at all. It finally agreed that Taiwan could join the WTO because it is a separate customs territory with different rules on importing goods. It won't be regarded as a country in its own right.

Hong Kong and Macau, both recently handed back to China, also are separate members of the WTO.

Tuesday's decision opens the way for both China and Taiwan to be formally approved for membership at a meeting of trade ministers planned for Doha, Qatar, in November. The two would then likely become full WTO members early next year, following ratification by their own legislatures.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing considers the island to be a breakaway province to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Taiwan held the China seat at the United Nations until 1971, when the General Assembly voted to oust the Taiwan government and replace it with the mainland People's Republic.

China's opposition to Taiwan's status as a country in its own right has blocked its membership into the U.N. and other international bodies, but Beijing has made exceptions for bodies that deal exclusively with economic issues.