Taiwan’s Connections to Regional and Global Security

Taiwan acceded to the WTO in 2002 as the 'Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu' (Chinese Taipei), one year after the People's Republic of China joined. This arrangement allowed Taipei to participate fully in the multilateral trading system without resolving its contested sovereignty status, and it has since become one of the WTO's most active members in dispute settlement, government procurement, and the Information Technology Agreement. Taiwan's centrality to global semiconductor supply chains—TSMC alone produces a majority of the world's advanced logic chips—has elevated trade questions involving the island into matters of strategic security. The core disputes today center on the weaponization of trade tools around cross-Strait tensions. Beijing has periodically suspended imports of Taiwanese agricultural and industrial goods (pineapples in 2021, grouper in 2022, and a partial suspension of ECFA tariff concessions in 2023–2024) on what Taipei argues are politically motivated grounds inconsistent with WTO obligations. Simultaneously, U.S.-led export controls on advanced semiconductors and lithography equipment to China—coordinated with Japan and the Netherlands—have raised questions about Article XXI national security exceptions and the legitimate scope of unilateral measures. Taiwan is both a target of Chinese trade coercion and a key node in the export-control regime aimed at the PRC. The issue stands at an inflection point. Members must weigh how the WTO accommodates a member whose international status is contested by another member, how the national-security exception is interpreted after the 2022 panel ruling in the U.S. steel and aluminum dispute, and whether plurilateral arrangements (such as the U.S.–Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade or Taiwan's CPTPP bid) supplement or erode the multilateral system. The committee must reconcile non-discrimination principles with the reality that semiconductor supply chains have become a primary axis of geopolitical competition.

On 25 October 1971, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, which 'recognized the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations' and expelled 'the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek' from the seats they occupied. The resolution transferred China's UN seat from the Republic of China (then governing Taiwan) to the PRC, but it did not explicitly address Taiwan's sovereignty, the status of its population, or its eligibility for separate participation in the UN system. For over five decades, Beijing has interpreted 2758 as settling the question by equating it with the 'One China Principle,' while Taipei and a growing number of Western governments argue the resolution is silent on these broader matters. The dispute has intensified as Taiwan has been progressively excluded from UN specialized agencies and meetings—including the WHA, ICAO, and Interpol—and as PRC diplomatic pressure has reduced Taipei's formal allies to roughly a dozen states. Since 2021, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, several EU members, and the G7 have issued statements rejecting Beijing's expansive reading of 2758, with the U.S. State Department and the European Parliament explicitly stating that the resolution does not determine Taiwan's status or preclude its meaningful participation in international organizations. China has responded by intensifying military activities around the Taiwan Strait and lobbying member states to reaffirm its interpretation. The topic now sits at the intersection of international law, UN practice, and regional security. The Plenary must consider whether the General Assembly should clarify the scope of Resolution 2758, how Taiwan's 23 million people can engage with UN technical bodies on issues like aviation safety and pandemic response, and how to manage the risk that ambiguity over Taiwan's status contributes to miscalculation in one of the world's most militarized flashpoints. The debate also implicates broader questions about self-determination, the universality of UN participation, and great-power competition in the Indo-Pacific.