TAIPEI -- Taiwan may back away from its boycott of the placing of a Chinese judge on the World Trade Organization's top legal panel if the island is assured of fair treatment, a Taiwanese official said Sunday.

On Monday, Taiwan blocked an entire dispute meeting after failing to persuade WTO members to delay the naming of new judges to the seven-member WTO appeals body. The meeting would have appointed four new members, including Beijing attorney Yuejiao Zhang as the first Chinese judge.

Taiwan's refusal to allow the Chinese judge on the panel is paralyzing the work of the global trade body.

But Taiwanese government spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey said Sunday that Taiwan will back away from its opposition if impartiality by the Chinese judge is assured.

"We want a concrete assurance from the WTO that the Chinese judge will be impartial, not accept instructions from the Chinese government in handling matters regarding Taiwan," Shieh said.

"This is a legitimate request," he said, adding that Taiwan has been mistreated by China in many international organizations in the past.

The standoff has angered China and other countries because the failure to agree on an agenda is preventing the WTO from taking up a number of other major disputes.

On Friday, at a meeting called specifically to deal with the standoff, Taiwan rejected calls from the world's biggest commercial powers to back down.

The other three nominations to the panel are from the United States, Japan and the Philippines.

Taiwan is excluded from most international organizations because of Chinese opposition. It joined the WTO in early 2002, just after China. China has claimed sovereignty over the island since the two sides split amid the Chinese civil war in 1949.