The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged China to stop hindering Taiwan's effort to participate in the World Health Assembly (WHA), two weeks ahead of the assembly's annual meeting.
The nation is making its ninth bid for observer status at the WHA, the highest decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kau (高英茂), who just returned from a trip lobbying for European countries' support for Taiwan's bid, called a press conference to rebut China's claim that it wanted to help Taiwan join the WHO this year.
Citing several senior Chinese officials' public statements about Beijing's willingness to help Taiwan take part in WHO conferences, Kau said that China would only allow Taiwan to participate in WHO activities if it acknowledged that it was part of China.
According to Kau, China told the WHO Secretariat that Taiwanese officials could join the Chinese delegation to the WHA and suggested that the WHO pass its information to Taiwan through Beijing.
The WHO Secretariat passed China's message to Taiwan, Kau said. The secretariat, he added, "respects opinions of its member states" and holds a neutral stance on Taiwan's bid to join the health body.
China's proposal is "unacceptable" because Taiwan is a sovereign country, Kau said.
"We want direct channels of communication with the WHO," he noted.
There are discrepancies between China's public remarks on helping Taiwan participate in the WHO and its diplomatic actions in carrying out the proposal, Kau said.
On the diplomatic level, he said, China has not shown any sign of relenting in its opposition to Taiwan's bid for observer status in the health body, despite its seemingly conciliatory remarks.
But the Chinese officials' remarks about helping Taiwan join the WHO have nonetheless raised expectations in Taiwan of entering the body this year.
"The greater the expectations, the deeper the disappointment. If China fails to make good on its proposal, it will hurt the feelings of the Taiwanese people," the official said.
The ministry issued a statement yesterday calling for WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook to "positively help solve the problem of Taiwan's participation in the International Health Regulations and the WHO."
The regulations are the WHO's global legal framework for infectious disease control. Revision of the regulations began last year, and the ministry has been lobbying for an amendment to include Taiwan in the regulations.
To avoid the political issue of Taiwan's sovereignty, the ministry might even choose to send this year's application for observer status under the title "Center for Disease Control, Taiwan," Kau said.
The ministry hopes the adoption of the amended regulations at the assembly could grant Taiwan the opportunity to be included in WHO's disease control programs, the official said.
Taiwan's disease center could serve as a "focal point" in the WHO's international disease-control framework, Kau said.
"If so, Taiwan will no longer be a gap in the international framework for infectious disease control," he added.
The meeting of the WHA will be held in Geneva from May 16 to 25.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater