China opposes Taiwan’s role in UN climate talks

CANCUN - A Chinese diplomat has voiced opposition to proposals made by several countries to bring Taiwan as an observer into the negotiations process of the UN climate conference here, a media report said Friday.

Over 150 countries have addressed the high-level meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Unfccc) here in the past three days.

“But we noticed to our regret that several countries which do not seem to really care about climate change have tried to mix the negotiations with political issues, such as the issue related to Taiwan,” Huang Huikang, special representative of the Chinese foreign ministry for climate change negotiations, said Thursday at the UN meeting here.

“They preached the ideas of ‘Two Chinas’ and ‘One China, One Taiwan’ in their speeches,” China Daily quoted Huang as saying.

“It is known to all that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of it,” the diplomat added.

“These speeches went against the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and relevant regulations of the UNFCCC, and constituted a violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and interference in its internal affairs,” he said.

The Chinese government and people must make a firm stand against the speeches, he added.

“As negotiations at the Cancun conference have a very tight schedule, we believe it is the parties’ common aspiration to focus on the negotiations and consultations in order to reach positive results,” Huang said.

“They do not want to see the conference disrupted and hindered by factors unrelated to the agenda,” he said.

Huang said the Chinese delegation hoped that countries concerned abide by the one-China principle, understand and support the Chinese government’s efforts to safeguard the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.

The UN climate conference, from Nov 29 to Dec 10, aims to find solutions to global climate change. The high-level meeting of the conference started Tuesday.