Taiwan–Ukraine relations

Taiwan–Ukraine relations

Taiwan	Ukraine

Taiwan–Ukraine relations refer to the international relations between Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, and Ukraine. There are no official diplomatic relations between these two states, as Ukraine has supported the One-China policy and instead maintains official diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China since 1992. Both the ROC, at the time based in mainland China, and Ukraine (then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) were founding members of the United Nations in 1945.

Taiwan has no representative office in Ukraine. The consulate issues are handled via the representative office located in Moscow. But this authority has been temporarily transferred to Taipei representative office in Warsaw on 26 February 2022 due to the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Taipei representative office in Warsaw, Poland

History

Voting situation in the UN general assembly respect to resolution 2758 (1971).

Cold War

The Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. With the onset of the Cold War, the legitimate representative of China in the United Nations has become one of the disputing point between member states.

On 24 November 1966, the United Nations General Assembly met at the twenty-first session to discuss the representation of China. The Soviet Ukrainian representative spoke at first, advocating to vacate the seat of the Republic of China immediately and change the representative right to the People's Republic of China, claiming that the case was not under the scope of important issue covered by the Article 18 of the Charter of the United Nations.

After the session, the General Assembly passed Resolution 1668, declaring that any proposal to change the representation of China at the United Nations would require two-thirds majority vote.:

any proposal to change the representation of China is an important question.

The end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s saw the rapid deterioration of Taiwan's diplomatic relations. On 26 August 1971, as Taiwan was on the edge of being expelled from the United Nations, the ambassador of Taiwan to Honduras requested through foreign minister of Honduras to suggest dual representation as an alternative to Communist China's representation in the United Nations, citing the Soviet Union, Soviet Belarus and Soviet Ukraine as examples. At the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, the Soviet Ukrainian representatives along with majority of the UN members voted support to expel the representatives of Taiwan.

Short Contact

After the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine, the Taiwanese government became actively trying to persuade Ukraine to build diplomatic relations again. In January 1992, Taiwan's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Chiang Hsiao-yen made a diplomatic visit to Kyiv and discussed with Ukrainian officials about establishing formal relations between Taiwan and Ukraine. China responded by accelerating their negotiations with Ukraine and reached an agreement to re-establish formal relations in the same month. In April 1992, Chiang Hsiao-yen made another diplomatic visit to Ukraine, which ended up unsuccessful after the Ukrainian government received serious protest from the Chinese representative. Although there were some support from members of the parliament and economists in Ukraine for establishing formal relations with Taiwan to obtain economic aids, the proposal was eventually rejected.

On 22 April 2022, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan Joseph Wu held a meeting via video conferencing with Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko. During the meeting, Wu announced that $3 million would be provided to aid in reconstruction of Kyiv following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while the remaining $5 million will go to six medical institutions in Ukraine.

Military aid

In 2022, the ROC began to send some humanitarian aid to Ukraine at the Russian military invasion of the country. 27 tons of medical supplies were sent to Ukraine.

See also

• Foreign relations of the Republic of China
• Foreign relations of Ukraine