The EU should not let its "one China" policy restrict it from supporting Taiwan's bid to join the WHO, the head of the Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan said in Brussels on Thursday.
Because of its "one China" policy, the EU has long failed to support Taiwan's efforts to join the world health body, said Wu Shu-min (吳樹民), chairman of the non-profit foundation, which has played a leading role in pushing for Taiwan's WHO accession.
Wu is currently in Brussels to meet with media and medical leaders to drum up support for Taiwan's latest WHO bid.
Speaking at a gathering attended by about 30 media members and medical leaders, Wu noted that the EU has not supported Taiwan's WHO bid, agreeing just to allow "significant participation" by Taiwan in WHO-related activities, apparently because of the EU's "one China" policy.
Pointing out that both the US and Japan have expressed support for Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) -- the WHO's top decision-making body -- as an observer, while at the same time maintaining their "one China" policies, Wu said he doesn't have a clue why the EU has remained inactive on the issue.
"It's a pity that while Taiwan has continued to be excluded when the world needs esprit de corps in the battle against the H5N1 bird flu epidemic, the EU has only been talking about `significant participation' for Taiwan," Wu said.
Wu added that over the past decade, Taiwan has limited itself to only pursuing WHA observer status in an effort to avoid a conflict with China over the sovereignty issue.
"But even this modest request by Taiwan has been rejected," Wu lamented.
Also speaking was Taiwan's representative in Belgium, Michael Kau (高英茂), who said that Taiwan's bid to join the WHO comes at a critical time, pointing out that the report of H5N1 cases in Japan underscores the fact that health threats are not constrained by national borders.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening 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) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS