It is 'unfair' that India is not in UNSC: Taiwan

Taiwan on Friday made a strong pitch for India's inclusion in the UN Security Council (UNSC), saying it needs to be reconstituted as the veto power is with very few countries which is disproportionate to the membership of the United Nations.

Taiwan Economic and Cultural Centre (TECC) Representative, Ambassador Chung-Kwang Tien said India should play a key role in the UNSC and that it was "unfair" that the country was not a permanent member of the powerful world body.

"The UN has 200 countries as members but only 5 countries have veto power. It is too small and too little to represent the whole members," he told reporters here.

The veto power-holding countries are the US, UK, Russia, France and China.

"The UNSC must be reconstructed and India must play a very very important role in it. This is unfair that India is not there," Chung-Kwang Tien said.

The Representative of Taiwan, over which China lays claim of territorial right, underscored the need for curtailing China's expansionist designs.

"China has gone too far... It has issues with India too -- border issue, trade imbalance issue and issue related to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)," he said.

Referring to the efforts India had to make to ensure China ended blocking of a proposal at the UNSC to list Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, he said: "How many years have you have been fighting for."

To a question about India making efforts to build friendly relations with China, he said: "You need to have good relations with your neighbours but please, have parallel relations with others. You make friends not at the cost of other friends."

He noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Taiwan when he was a BJP General Secretary and said he knows the situation.

"Relationship with Taiwan is a win-win situation (for India)," he said and spoke about the benefits that the relationship can have.

He said India and Taiwan have signed a Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement.

"Taiwan is using soft power to build ties with countries... Economic ties are important along with diplomatic ties," he said.

To a question, he said: "Whether we will bow to China? That is not going to happen."

--IANS

akk/vd