BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) - China and Taiwan traded barbs on Tuesday over Taiwan’s latest failed attempt to join the U.N., as Beijing called the island’s president “scum” and Taiwan said China couldn’t face up to the fact of its sovereignty.

Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian speaks during the opening ceremony of an exhibition about Taiwan's democratic movements in the past 20 years in Taipei July 15, 2007. China slammed Taiwan's latest failed attempt to join the United Nations on Tuesday, accusing its president of trying to split the nation and labeling him "scum" in some of the strongest language it has used in years. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

The United Nations on Monday rejected Taiwan’s application to join the world body, citing Beijing’s “one China” policy that says there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it.

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has vowed to bring the island back under mainland rule, by force if necessary.

“Scums of the nation who attempt to split the country cannot escape the punishment of history in the end,” Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office as saying.

“This has once again proved that (Taiwan President) Chen Shui-bian is an out and out plotter and saboteur who would not hesitate to sacrifice the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in Asia-Pacific.”

Chen applied for membership of the organization under the name “Taiwan”, a departure from Taipei’s past practice of applying as “Republic of China”, its official name.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council fired back that China was failing to face up to reality.

“China is attempting to use the international community to pressure Taiwan and that just shows that it doesn’t dare to face the fact that Taiwan is sovereign and independent, and that the two sides don’t belong to each other,” the MAC said in a statement.

It added: “The government’s determination to join the United Nation and the direction to respect the willingness of all the Taiwanese people will never change.”

The U.N. rejection has become part of an annual ritual for Taiwan, which has seen its application for membership in the world body rejected for 15 consecutive times due to pressure from Beijing.

Taiwan has just 24 diplomatic allies -- mostly small, impoverished nations in the South Pacific, Africa and Latin America, compared to around 180 for economically booming China.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry expressed regret at the U.N. move, saying the right to representation for the people of Taiwan had not been resolved, according to a report from Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

China has kept Taiwan out of most world bodies that require statehood as a condition for membership, blocking its attempt to join the World Health Organisation earlier this year.

Taiwan left the United Nations in 1972 when Communist China took over the seat from the Nationalist government that fled to the island after the civil war, and has been unrepresented in the body since then.

Chen’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in power since 2000, is also pursuing a referendum that would allow the island’s residents to vote on whether it should pursue U.N. membership under the name Taiwan.

That campaign has drawn the ire of not only Beijing, but also the United States -- Taiwan’s most important ally -- which has said it opposes moves by Taiwan that would unilaterally change the status quo between China and Taiwan.