Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) yesterday arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, where he is expected to hold talks with representatives of World Health Assembly (WHA) participating nations, as well as to protest to China over Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s meeting.
Prior to his departure, Chen reiterated the necessity for Taiwan to take part in the WHA and urged the world to recognize the importance of Taiwan’s existence.
He said officials from many countries have agreed to hold talks with his delegation while in Geneva, but he would not name any of the countries.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
During the bilateral and multilateral talks, Taiwan plans to share its experiences in the areas of health and medicine with WHA participants, he said.
Also, Taiwan must express its protest and anger to China while in Geneva, he said.
Taiwan had hoped to attend this year’s WHA meeting — taking place from tomorrow through May 31 — as an observer, as it has done the past few years, but it did not receive an invitation from the WHO — likely as a result of Chinese opposition.
The WHA is the WHO’s decisionmaking body and meets annually to discuss health issues of global concern and formulate policies.
Taiwan first attended the WHA meeting as an observer in 2009, a year after then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power and pursued a more conciliatory policy toward Beijing.
Taiwan took part in every WHA meeting since then, until this year.
Its exclusion is widely seen as the latest move by China to clamp down on Taiwan’s international participation, a strategy that has become more aggressive since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in May last year.
Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) has received a proposal from 11 countries that the issue of “inviting Taiwan to participate in the WHA as an observer” be included on the agenda of the WHA meeting, according to a notice issued by the WHA on Friday.
However, the notice came with a note stressing that Taiwan is referred to as “Taiwan, China” under WHO rules.
The 11 countries were Belize, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands, all of which are Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
A steering committee is to convene tomorrow to discuss whether to put it on the agenda and made a suggestion to the general assembly for it to make a final decision, a Taiwanese foreign affairs official said.
Even if the proposal is rejected, it would be read at the general assembly and the allies can express their views, the official said.
Taiwan decided to ask its diplomatic allies to submit the proposal after it was confirmed that the nation would not receive an invitation to the meeting this year.
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