Taipei, August 12:

Taiwan said today it wants the United Nations to investigate tension between the island and its rival, China, as Taiwan’s allies backed the move and pushed for its readmission to the world body. Taiwan lost the China UN seat to Beijing’s Communist government in 1971, and since the early 1990s has launched annual bids to get back into the organisation. China’s former Nationalist government lost a civil war to the Communists in 1949 and fled to Taiwan, where the Nationalists claimed to be the legitimate Chinese government. But it disavowed the claim in 1991 and Taiwan’s leaders have drifted toward a separate Taiwanese identity.

However, China claims the island as its territory and passed a law earlier this year codifying the use of force if Taiwan moves toward formal independence. Today, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun told reporters that 13 of the island’s UN allies had filed a request yesterday with Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint either an envoy or task force to look into China-Taiwan tension. Annan “should take the necessary measures to encourage and assist the two sides to engage in peaceful dialogue and exchanges,” Chen said. Yesterday, 11 of Taiwan’s allies filed a request asking for next month’s UN General Assembly meeting to consider the island’s latest bid for readmission to the body.

Taiwan has deployed missiles: Report

TAIPEI: Taiwan has begun deploying home-made cruise missiles on mobile launchers that are capable of hitting major military targets in southeast China, a newspaper here reported

on Friday. The China Times said the Hsiung Feng missiles, which have a range of 1,000 km, were deployed across the island by the defense ministry’s new missile command. — AFP