TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Trump's candidate for UN Ambassador Tuesday stressed the importance of Taiwan's participation in international organizations. 

During a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing, Committee Chair Jim Risch said China has “blocked our ally Taiwan from fully participating in the UN" and positioned Chinese diplomats in the UN system to serve Beijing's interests. Representative Elise Stefanik responded by stressing the need for Washington to ensure the nomination of candidates from the US or allied nations for key leadership positions in the UN.

Stefanik highlighted the importance of focusing on technical organizations, such as telecommunications, intellectual property, civil aviation, and AI. She emphasized, “We need to ensure Taiwan has maximum meaningful participation in international organizations.”

In addition, she said China has inserted specific wording in Mandarin in UN communications that conflicts with US values. Therefore, she stressed the importance of having linguists with a high level of expertise in Mandarin to monitor all documents and statements from the UN system. 

Stefanik previously demonstrated a strong stance on China after an incident last year involving Harvard University Taiwanese American student Cosette Wu (吳亭樺), who protested against Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng's (謝峰) speech and was forcibly removed by Chinese students. Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, criticized the university for being “completely corrupted by adversarial foreign influence” and “kowtowing to Communist China.”