An encounter between Taiwanese and Chinese delegations at the World Health Assembly (WHA) had not taken place as of at press time yesterday as Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延), who is heading the Taiwanese delegation, entered the Palace of Nations in Geneva for the opening of the conference.
Lin has said he would not go out of his way to arrange a meeting with the head of the Chinese delegation, but would greet him if the opportunity arose.
Li Bin (李斌), head of China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission, on Sunday did not respond to media queries on whether there would be any exchanges with the Taiwanese delegation.
Photo: CNA
The two delegations to the WHA conference, which opened at 9:30am yesterday, attracted attention because of the change of government in Taiwan and a controversy over the wording of the invitation to Taiwan this year.
For the first time since 2009, the invitation for Taiwan to attend the WHA as an observer mentioned UN Resolution 2758, WHA Resolution 25.1 and the “one China” principle underlying the two documents.
Lin declined to respond to media queries on Sunday when asked about reports that he had been assigned to deliver a letter of protest to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) on the government’s behalf over the wording of the invitation.
Taiwanese civic groups on Sunday staged a protest near the venue of the WHA, calling for Taiwan to be made a full WHO member and to take part in all activities at the WHA conference.
Taiwan has been attending the WHA as an observer since 2009 under the name of Chinese Taipei, but can only attend the general assembly, Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance executive director Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) said, adding that it was time Taiwan gained full membership.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
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