Classification of Taiwan

Background

Since the defeat of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1949 at the hands of the Communist Party of China during the Chinese civil war, and its subsequent retreat to the Taipei, the question of whether or not Taiwan can be considered a sovereign state has always been a contentious one. As such, to simply classify Taiwan as a sovereign state in the same way that we classify the United States as sovereign would be factually incorrect. Due to the complex nature of the sovereignty of Taiwan, we have decided to enumerate our rationale for classifying and defining 'Taiwan' in the manner with which it is presented in GEO.

Rationale

The definition of 'statehood' that is specified by the Montevideo Convention, and serves as the most widely-cited definition of the term, is as follows:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Generally, any geopolitical entity that meets this definition is considered to be a de facto state.

That being said, China argues that this is superseded by the authority of the UN, wherein only 21 states recognize Taiwan's independence, and in which Taiwan has been barred from membership. It also argues that, because UN Assembly Resolution 2758 states,

Recognizing that the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations, the UN only recognizes the People's Republic of China as having sovereignty.

However, this resolution makes no reference to the legal status of Taiwan's statehood, and was meant to clarify that only representatives from the People's Republic of China, and not Taiwan, represented China in the UN.

This barring of membership to the UN is mostly a doing of Chinese political maneuvering, in which Resolution 2758 is usually invoked when attempts are made to include Taiwan into the UN. Because it is not a member of the UN and because only a small minority of UN members recognize its sovereignty, Taiwan is not considered to be a de jure state (i.e., a state according to international law).

Hence, because Taiwan does meet the requirements of a de facto state, but is only recognized by a handful of states as being sovereign and has essentially been barred access from the United Nations, in addition to the World Health Organization, we have decided to classify it as a de facto state.