Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said on Wednesday that the United Nations' decision not to consider the so-called "Taiwan participation in the United Nations" issue is a victory for justice.

Any attempt to break up China or to promote Taiwan's participation in the United Nations is doomed to fail, Tang said.

Tang, who is in New York to attend the 57th General Assembly session, made the statement after the General Committee of the UN General Assembly decided not to consider the Taiwan issue during its current session.

The committee's decision foiled for the 10th consecutive time Taiwan's attempt to join the world body.

The decision was announced by Jan Kavan, president of the General Assembly, after a long debate on the proposal raised by Gambia and a few other countries in an attempt to get the issue onto the agenda of the assembly session, which opened at UN headquarters on Tuesday.

Wang Yingfan, China's permanent representative to the UN, criticized the Taiwan move as being aimed at creating "two Chinas," or "one China, one Taiwan." Wang noted that it is "in violation of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations as well as General Assembly Resolution 2758."

Diplomats from more than 60 countries also stressed that the issue of China's participation in the UN has already been resolved in Resolution 2758 at the 26th General Assembly session in 1971 and that debate on a settled issue is a sheer waste of time.

Resolution 2758 recognizes in unequivocal terms that "the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations, and that the People's Republic of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council."

In his statement to the General Committee of the UN General Assembly, Wang said that it is an indisputable objective reality and legal fact widely recognized by the international community that there is only one China in the world and that Taiwan has been an inseparable part of China's territory since antiquity.

He stressed there is simply no such an issue as the so-called "Taiwan representation in the United Nations."

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said yesterday the rejection of the Taiwan bid demonstrates once again the firm determination of the vast majority of UN members.

"We seriously warn all separatist forces in Taiwan not to misjudge the situation," Kong said. They must immediately stop all separatist activities, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2002)