Beijing, August 17:

China has fired off a letter to UN chief Kofi Annan warning that Taiwan’s bid to join the United Nations amounted to a “gross encroachment on China’s internal affairs”, state press said today.

Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya sent the letter on Monday outlining Beijing’s firm opposition to Taiwan’s 13th bid to join the world body. Wang criticised the move as a “brazen violation” of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

“Taiwan is a part of China’s territory and it has never been a country. There is only one China in the world, and China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity brook no division,” the letter said, according to the China Daily.

Wang told Annan significant changes had taken place in Taiwan, “where the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionists have intensified their activities, threatening the peaceful and stable development of cross-Straits relations”.

“This has increasingly become the biggest obstacle to the growth of cross-Straits relations,” he was quoted as saying.

The UN General Assembly is expected to debate whether to table Taiwan’s membership bid after it opens on September 13. The effort was likely to fail.