Taiwan yesterday officially launched its 10th bid to gain observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA), striving for "meaningful participation" in the body's annual meeting that is scheduled to begin next week, government officials announced yesterday.
The WHA -- the World Health Organization's highest decision-making body -- will convene its annual assembly in Geneva from next Monday through Saturday.
"Apart from gaining observer status at the WHA, which has always been our goal, another important goal this year is to strive for meaningful participation -- in which our health experts are allowed to participate in WHO-sponsored meetings," vice foreign minister Michael Kau (高英茂) said yesterday.
Kau made the remarks at a press conference jointly held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Health and the Government Information Office regarding the nation's application to enter the world health body.
The term "meaningful participation" entails the inclusion of Taiwan in a global infectious disease alert and response system, the implementation of the International Health Regulations, and Taiwan's participation in WHO-sponsored technical meetings as well as in activities of its six regional offices.
The nation's Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced on Monday that it would volunteer to go ahead with early implementation of the regulations, which are the WHO's global legal framework for infectious disease control. The health assembly passed the regulations last year and decided to begin global implementation in the second half of this year.
The regulations aim to bolster global systems for the quarantine, surveillance, reporting and verification of infectious diseases. By implementing the regulations, the CDC will become a window of contact between Taiwan and the global health community, Kau said.
Kau said that last year, Taiwan participated in 14 out of a total of 32 WHA meetings it requested joining. Taiwan's participation in the meetings depended on whether China was opposed or not, he said.
The WHO Secretariat signed a memorandum of understanding with China last year in which it agreed that Beijing's permission would be required for Taiwan's participation in any WHO activities.
The memorandum was a bilateral agreement between the WHO and China, and most of its contents remain unknown to Taiwanese officials.
Minister of Health Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂) said that the memorandum required that all Taiwanese applications to join meetings must be submitted four to five weeks in advance, and that the WHO would allow China to appoint the Taiwanese individual who could join a particular.
"The officials allowed to join the meeting are usually low-ranking, and the response [from China] has varied," Hou said.
Hou said whether or not Taiwan could attend a meeting appeared to be decided by China in a "random" manner.
Kau said that striving for "meaningful participation" in the WHA's activities was even more significant than gaining observer status at the assembly.
"Gaining observer status is a highly difficult task, as China regards this as an issue of politics and sovereignty. It's gotten more and more difficult in recent years as China has intensified its `sovereign diplomacy and big country diplomacy' to squeeze out any possible international space for Taiwan," he said.
Kau explained that under the agreement between the WHO and China, Taiwan sometimes had to participate in the WHO's technical meetings under the name "Taiwan, China" or sometimes participated as "Taipei."
"We tried to be pragmatic and flexible on the status issue because sometimes, if the [WHO's] invitations go directly to Beijing, then Taiwan's name will be downgraded. But if not, for example, when we participated in a meeting held in Japan ... in that case we can just ignore Beijing and go directly to the organization responsible for holding the meeting. There is a limit to China's pressure," Kau said.
National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday said it disqualified a person from an entrance examination for using AI smart glasses to cheat, along with two others for making untruthful statements in their curriculum vitae. The three applicants were given null scores, Taiwan’s highest-ranked university said, calling on prospective students to be honest in the admissions process. NTU registrar Lee Hung-sen (李宏森) said that the cheating applicant wore a hat and thick-rimmed glasses to the second written exam for medical school, claiming that they felt cold. Suspicions were aroused when the applicant stared oddly at the test for long stretches while steadily bringing the paper
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
Heavy rain is expected to affect parts of Taiwan this week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday as a meteorologist said the active part of the annual plum rain season has started. A stationary plum rain front and southwesterly winds would bring unstable weather and abundant moisture to Taiwan from today for about a week, with the heaviest rainfall forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, the CWA said. The agency said western and northeastern Taiwan, and mountainous areas in the east and southeast, could expect showers or thunderstorms on those two days, with localized heavy rain possible. Other parts of
RSS