The World Organisation for Animal Heath (OIE) will revise its charter to change the term “member country” to “member” as a friendly gesture to Taiwan, a senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
Taiwan gained entry to the OIE in 1954 under the name “Republic of China (Taiwan),” but was forced to change its title to “Taipei China” after Beijing was admitted to the organization in 1992.
In 2007, China again pressured members of the Paris-based OIE to adopt a resolution downgrading Taiwan’s membership status to “non-sovereign regional member.”
Although China succeeded in having Taiwan’s membership status downgraded, the OIE agreed to change Taiwan’s title from “Taipei China” to “Chinese Taipei” after the intervention of the US, Japan and the EU.
But as the OIE Charter makes no mention of “non-sovereign regional members,” there was no basis for the 2007 resolution, the official said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The OIE Secretariat plans to revise the charter to replace the term “member country” with “member,” he said, to avoid the differentiation of members as “member countries” and “non-sovereign regional members” and ensure that all members are on an equal footing.
The official said the change would make it clear that the 2007 resolution was baseless.
He said the ministry was happy with the OIE’s move and hoped that other international organizations would realize that Taiwan and China had stopped their political wrangling and treat Taiwan fairly so that it could deepen its contributions to the international community.
He also said the 2007 resolution had not affected the OIE’s operations or Taiwan’s participation.
When Council of Agriculture official Sung Hua-tsung (宋華聰) attended OIE meetings, he still wore a name tag bearing the word “member” as did the representatives of other member states. On the OIE Web site, Taiwan was listed as one of the 172 member states under the name “Taipei (Chinese),” the official said.
The ministry official said nonpolitical international bodies like the OIE were unhappy with political wrangling between Taiwan and China at the organizations.
Cross-strait relations have warmed since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office last year, the official said, and the world has seen the benefits of increased cross-strait interaction.
The 77th OIE assembly will be held between May 24 and May 29 in Paris.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
Four former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers jailed in the territory’s largest national security case were released yesterday after more than four years in prison, the first among dozens convicted last year to regain their freedom. Former legislators Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), Jeremy Tam (譚文豪), Kwok Ka-ki (郭家麒) and Gary Fan (范國威) were part of a group of 47 public figures — including some of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy advocates — who were charged with subversion in 2021 for holding an informal primary election. The case fell under a National Security Law imposed on the territory by Beijng, and drew international condemnation and warnings
RSS