United Nations HQ, New York
BARONESS DRUMMOND wasn’t wrong. The special emergency session of the UN General Assembly was running late into the evening and everyone wanted to have their say. From the US Ambassador, the session heard an uncompromising verbal assault on China’s actions against Taiwan, how its illegal landing of a force on Lieyu Island, its aerial intrusions, its missile overflights and its intimidation of commercial shipping should end immediately. These actions, he said, were nothing short of a direct challenge to the international rules-based order, the very architecture of global security that had prevented the world going to war since 1945.
His words were echoed in typically blunt fashion by the Australian Ambassador, who called it ‘a bloody disgrace’ what Beijing was doing to security in the South China Sea. Japan and South Korea’s emissaries were somewhat more diplomatic in their language but both equally concerned about what they called ‘an unacceptable invasion of sovereign territory and unjustified pressure being placed on a sisterly nation in our region’. Taiwan, of course, had no seat at the UN General Assembly. Beijing had seen to that some years ago.
When it was the turn of the People’s Republic of China the Ambassador addressed the assembly in perfect English, tinged with a slight transatlantic twang. The interpreters seated in their glass booth did struggle at times, though, since she was the only speaking delegate in the hall still wearing a facemask.
‘Some of the statements we have heard here today are not accurate and need to be corrected,’ she began. Her tone, while not quite abrasive, was still very much that of a head teacher addressing morning assembly. ‘You should be respectful of the facts and not talk recklessly. I would like to remind everyone of the 1992 Consensus and the statements made by His Excellency the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Reunification with Taiwan is in the overall interest of the Chinese nation and that, of course, includes our Taiwan compatriots.’ And now her tone grew sterner as her gaze surveyed the room, eventually settling on the US delegation. ‘But no one, I repeat no one, should underestimate the Chinese people’s firm and unwavering determination to defend national sovereignty. So, what has wrongly been called “an invasion” on Lieyu Island is not in fact anything of the kind. It is simply a demonstration of the will of the Chinese people, who wish to exercise their sovereign rights within China’s natural borders. This is not a matter that concerns outsiders. We say again that we do not accept any interference or meddling in the internal affairs of our nation.’