China is in a huff about suggestions that Taiwan be invited to attend the COP, an annual UN conference about the weather.
“COP” stands for “Conference of the Parties to the Convention.” The convention they’re party to is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The world comes to the conference every year in hopes of building an effective interventionism-powered weather control machine that can tweak global weather. The effort is one of the silliest of all international enterprises. But many people take it very seriously and believe that the spring, summer, fall, and winter can surely be adjusted in just the right way if only everybody agrees to do things like outlaw gas-powered vehicles and coal.
COP 28 is being held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12, 2023.
Some country representatives in attendance think it’d be nice if Taiwan could come to these annual meetings too. Agence France Presse reports (December 9, 2023):
Two of the dwindling number of countries that recognise Taiwan—Guatemala and the tiny Pacific island of Nauru—both hailed support from Taipei in addresses at the COP28 conference.
“I would take this opportunity to make special reference to the government of Taiwan, a friendly country which has contributed via international cooperation to development projects to bolster adaptation and resilience projects on climate change,” said Marco Vinicio Ochoa, a vice minister from the Central American country.
“Therefore, we call for them to be able to participate in this important forum,” he said.
“A handful of countries ignored the fact that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and made noises about the participation by the Taiwan authorities,” the China representative burbled in response. “In fact, the Taiwan region can contribute to the global climate change fight through existing arrangements.”
The implication is that all the other countries at the conference accept “the fact that” Taiwan is an “an inalienable part of China.”
Since its founding in 1949, the People’s Republic of China has never governed Taiwan. But for decades, many non-Guatemala countries have adopted a China-appeasing “strategic ambiguity” about the status of Taiwan. To be sure, the COP is pointless and foolish. But as long as all the other countries can come to these pointless and foolish conferences, why shouldn’t Taiwan be able to come too?
