The Associated Press (AP) should apologize and correct a story whose headline suggested President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that China had approved Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting, the deputy foreign minister said.
“The AP story’s headline reads: ‘Taiwan president: China approves island WHO role.’ This is totally untrue, therefore the Presidential Office should ask AP to run a correction and AP should apologize to the government,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrew Hsia (夏立言) told reporters on Friday.
On Wednesday, Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said he received a fax from WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) on Tuesday night inviting Taiwan to attend the annual assembly this month under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
It will be the first time Taiwan has attended a meeting of a UN specialized agency since the Republic of China forfeited its UN membership in 1971.
Ma held a news conference on Wednesday to break the news, saying participation in this year’s WHA was a result of Taiwan’s perseverance, China’s goodwill and support from the international community.
Ma lauded improvements in cross-strait ties and the building of mutual trust.
Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) yesterday said AP should improve the quality of its reporting.
He said the original AP report had been cited by local media and that resulting damage to the government “was not minor.”
“To be honest, we were very troubled by the report … We think that such a professional news outlet should demand its news coverage achieve a certain quality,” Su said.
AP has not responded to the government’s demand. On Friday, Peter Enav, the report’s author and head of AP’s Taiwan bureau, declined to comment when contacted by the Taipei Times.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday reiterated that Taiwan’s accession to the WHA as an observer was the result of direct consultation with the WHO and not via Beijing.
But the Central News Agency (CNA) on Thursday quoted WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham as saying that the WHO had no involvement whatsoever in negotiations and that the director-general issued the invitation to Taiwan only after she was notified of the outcome of cross-strait negotiations.
“The ministry is still assessing the CNA report. But I can boldly say the arrangement was not made under Beijing’s dictate and that the diligent efforts of many supporters of Taiwan in the international community have been a crucial factor,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu and Shih Hsiu-chuan
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