Taiwan deserves to be a U.N. member

NEW YORK -- The United Nations admitted Tuvalu, a tiny South Pacific island state, as its 189th member last fall, but not Taiwan despite the latter's efforts for the past decade. The U.N.'s action seems incongruous even by a simple comparison.

Taiwan's territory is 1,389 times larger than Tuvalu, which consists of nine atolls with a total area only one-tenth that of Washington, D.C. Taiwan has a population of 23 million, or 2,300 times that of Tuvalu's 10,000. Taiwan's gross domestic product in 1999 was $362 billion, or 3,620 times larger than Tuvalu's. Taiwan's international trade for the same year exceeded $233 billion, or about 46,700 times larger than Tuvalu's.

Taiwan also far better satisfies two U.N. membership requirements (U.N. Charter Article 4, paragraph 1):