China ambushed the nation's allies on the Executive Board of the WHO by robbing them of the opportunity to speak up for Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
El Salvador, Paraguay and Sao Tome and Principe had jointly proposed a draft resolution calling for the International Health Regulations (IHR) of 2005 to be extended to include non-members like Taiwan.
The bill, which was initially scheduled for consideration during yesterday's meeting of the 122nd session of the WHO's Executive Board, was successfully blocked by China after it unexpectedly requested that its review be advanced to Monday 10 minutes before the day's meeting was to conclude, when most of the bill's sponsors were absent.
"We strongly condemn China for disregarding the health rights of Taiwanese. We also protest against the WHO for ignoring our allies' right to speak on behalf of their draft resolution," ministry spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said.
Yeh said China has never cared about the health of Taiwanese, as shown by its failure last year to inform Taiwan of a shipment of potentially toxic corn from Thailand.
She said Paraguay had yesterday proposed an amendment stipulating that all countries must be included in the framework in order to prevent gaps in global efforts against disease.
Quoting the "universal application" clause within the IHR, Paraguay said China had no legitimate authority to represent Taiwan's health interests.
Yeh told the Taipei Times that representatives from San Tome and Principe and El Salvador had also condemned Beijing's claim to represent Taiwan's health interests.
Belize, although not a board member, also spoke in favor of Taiwan.
At press time, the meeting had not been adjourned.
It was reported that China also proposed its own amendment in an effort to block Taiwan's representation in the health agreement. Sri Lanka and Djibouti seconded China's motion.
Shen Lyu-hsun (
"Unless the WHO does something about it, Taiwan will remain a gap in the global disease surveillance system after the Executive Board meeting concludes," Shen said.
During Monday's meeting, Li Baodong (
An April agreement between Beijing and the WHO on Taiwan's role in the IHR stipulated that China's National Focal Point would handle routine IHR matters through existing cross-strait health communication channels, Li said.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS