Taiwan will call a vote at next month's World Health Assembly (WHA) on whether the assembly should accept the country's eighth application for observer status, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (
It would be the first time Taiwan has called for such a vote since it made its first application for World Health Organization(WHO) observer status in 1997.
The WHA, the WHO's top decision-making body, will meet in Geneva from May 17 to May 22.
Despite China's opposition to Taiwan's bid to enter the WHO, the government decided to call the vote because the US and Japan have promised firm support, Chen said.
Taiwan's overseas embassies and representative offices have begun lobbying their host countries to support Taiwan's WHO bid, Chen added.
Chen made the remarks at a reseption held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he formally met with diplomats for the first time since he assumed his post earlier this month.
Former minister of foreign affairs Eugene Chien (
American Institute in Taiwan deputy director David Keegan and Japan Interchange Association in Taipei Representative Katsuhisa Uchida held a closed-door meeting with a senior ministry official to discuss Taiwan's WHO bid after the party.
The meeting lasted about half an hour.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US has pledged casting its ballot in support of Taiwan should it call a vote in the WHA.
Japan is likely to follow the US' lead in supporting Taiwan, but it is yet unclear whether Japan will also vote in support of Taiwan.
Japanese government agencies' opinions about whether to back Taiwan's WHO bid remain divided, with some wanting to boost support for Taiwan, while others want to maintain the status quo, according to the official.
The ministry has also focused on seeking support from EU countries for the WHO bid, added the official, noting that China has 162 allies and that Taiwan only has 26.
There might be some countries that show their support for Taiwan by not casting their vote or not attending the vote at the assembly.
Describing the country's long-time efforts to enter the WHO as a "moral crusade," the official, who played a pivotal role in strategy making for the WHO bid over the years, appealed for the international community to face their conscience when looking at Taiwan's isolation from the health body.
Barring Taiwan from the WHO is effective "health apartheid," the official remarked.
According to ministry statistics, in addition to Taiwan's 23-million people, the nation's health agencies have to deal with health matters for more than 27 million international air passengers and 225,000 international flights annually.
If Beijing would soften its position on Taiwan's WHO application as the assembly starts on May 17, President Chen Shui-bian (
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS