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.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS