TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has defiantly restated his country's statehood while hitting back at US criticism of the island's planned UN membership referendum, in a television interview.

The US "is aware of Taiwan's public opinion but they want me to bar (the referendum) and ask me to exercise my leadership and influence as the president to bar it. I don't have the right to," go against public opinion, he told SET TV late Friday.

The US "cannot ask Taiwan to be a democratic country but forbid it to hold a referendum ... the US cannot draw a red line on Taiwan's democracy but shift it back and forth," he said.

Chen has vowed to press ahead with a referendum on whether to apply for the United Nations membership under the name "Taiwan" despite opposition from Washington and Beijing.

The Taiwan leader rebutted a White House official's comment that the referendum plan is "perplexing" because Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not a state.

"I feel that it is a fact that Taiwan is an independent sovereign state. However, the name the Republic of China can be changed," Chen said, without elaborating.

He also dismissed concerns that the planned referendum would be a step towards declaring independence for the island and a deviation from the status quo.

"More than 70 countries do not use their official names to join the United Nations so it is not necessary to join (the UN) under the official name," he said.

"If we want to re-enter the UN as the Republic of China we have to fight for the representation of 'one China.' ... But is it possible to kick the People's Republic of China out" of the UN? he added.

Taiwan, under its official name the Republic of China, lost its UN seat to China in 1971.

Efforts in the past 14 years to rejoin the world body using the name have been repeatedly blocked by Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification.

Only 24 countries formally recognise Taipei over Beijing.

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