US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Friday urged US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price to help Taiwan join the upcoming session of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decisionmaking body of the WHO.
The next session of the WHA is scheduled to run from May 22 to May 31 in Geneva, Switzerland, but Taiwan has yet to receive an invitation from the WHO secretariat.
“Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Organization threatens the international community’s full access to Taiwan’s high-quality healthcare information. Due to its superb talent, data collection and quarantine and treatment facilities, Taiwan has excellent infectious disease control capabilities,” Ros-Lehtinen, the former chair of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a letter to Price.
Photo: Reuters
“Its valuable information and cooperation with the [US] Centers for Disease Control was crucial in stemming the spread of SARS 14 years ago... Taiwan’s cooperation with the WHO is crucial to helping global health services effectively battle these and other diseases,” she said.
“As was the case with the International Civil Aviation Organization last year, it is likely that Taiwan will be blocked from receiving an invitation to the WHA summit. In a dangerous and shortsighted effort to constrain Taiwan, China hinders Taiwan’s participation in many international organizations, including ICAO, WHO and Interpol. Taiwan’s meaningful participation in WHO is not only in the interest of Taiwan, but is of critical importance to our own healthcare system and capability of fighting infectious diseases,” she added.
She also encouraged Price “to visit Taiwan in the near future to discuss opportunities to collaborate, to our mutual benefit, on public health protection measures.”
Earlier this week, Canada voiced its support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHA, saying that to exclude the nation from the event would create “counterproductive” results for the international health system.
In response to questions on Tuesday by Canadian Senator Thanh Hai Ngo about Taiwan’s participation in the WHA, Senator Peter Harder — the Canadian government’s representative in the Canadian Senate — said that Ottawa had been supportive of Taiwan’s participation in international organizations on global health and in other areas.
Canada has taken note of Taiwan’s attendance at the WHA as an observer over the past eight years, Harder said, adding that it is the position of the Canadian government that Taiwan’s participation is in the interest of global health.
Excluding Taiwan from the WHO would be counterproductive and create a critical gap in global health systems in the event of an outbreak of a highly contagious epidemic globally or regionally, he said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) yesterday said that Taiwan would still send a delegation to participate in bilateral meetings, even if the nation does not receive a formal invitation to participate in this year’s WHA.
“We already arranged for many bilateral meetings, which can also serve as a means for us to make an appropriate and normal contribution to the international system,” he said.
Lee said that he would not join the delegation and would instead send a department head to provide assistance to Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who is to head the delegation.
Lee has repeatedly said he was not optimistic about receiving an invitation, but promised that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ efforts would not diminish
He said there had been no developments on the issue as of noon yesterday.
Additional reporting by Abraham Gerber
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS