The government yesterday denounced Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), but said it would still send a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, at the time the 10-day conference is being held.
Taiwan had hoped to once again attend the WHA, to be held in Geneva from May 22 to May 31, as an observer, but it did not receive an invitation from the WHO by the deadline on Monday for online registration because of Chinese obstruction.
The WHA is the WHO’s decisionmaking body.
Photo: CNA
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said that Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) would lead a delegation to Geneva at the time of the WHA.
If the delegation is not allowed to enter the conference venue, it would still take the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines with delegations of participating nations, Wang said.
Taiwan would have several opportunities to exchange views on global health issues with representatives from other nations during the WHA, she said.
The ministry also said in a statement that if the WHO “succumbs to political pressure” and ultimately decides not to invite Taiwan to the WHA, it would affect the health rights of the 23 million Taiwanese and create a serious gap in the international health system.
At a separate news conference yesterday, Chen said that “the main purpose of attending the WHA is to protect the health and safety of all Taiwanese,” adding that Taiwan also hopes to provide professional, substantial and meaningful contributions to help protect the health and safety of people around the world.
Chen said that if he comes across China’s representative on the sidelines of the WHA, he would stress the importance of Taiwan’s participation in light of global efforts to combat epidemics.
Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council strongly protested China’s obstruction of Taiwan’s participation at the meeting.
In a statement yesterday, the council accused Beijing of using “unilateral political reasons” to exert pressure on the WHO and block it from extending an invitation to Taiwan to attend this year’s WHA.
“The Mainland Affairs Council expresses strong discontent and protests this suppression of our government in violation of the mission of the WHO, as well as the rights and interests of Taiwan’s 23 million people,” the council said.
Beijing has been obstructing the nation’s bids to take part in the International Civil Aviation Organization and the WHO in an attempt to exert pressure on Taipei to achieve its political objectives, it said.
“We will never succumb to Beijing’s pressure, but will continue to make our voice heard in the international community, and fight for our right to participate in the WHA and other international organizations,” the council said.
Saying that the nation’s participation in the WHA was highly anticipated by Taiwanese, the council urged Beijing to carefully consider the consequences of the move and the possible damage it could cause to cross-strait relations.
Additional reporting by Lee I-chia
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘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
RSS