Taiwan will most likely send its membership application to the WHO in the next few days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, reiterating that the bid for membership was not an effort to change the country’s name.
The WHO charter says that all applications to be discussed during the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) must arrive at the secretariat’s office one month before the assembly.
The WHA, the WHO’s highest decision-making body, will be held from May 19 to May 24 in Geneva, Switzerland. So Taiwan has until tomorrow to submit its application to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍).
“All details are still being finalized and we are still negotiating with our allies on how to best put forth this year’s bid,” said Lily Hsu (徐儷文), deputy director-general of the ministry’s Department of International Organizations.
Presidential Office spokesman David Lee (李南陽) told the Taipei Times that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had already written the letter and asked the nation’s Geneva representative office to deliver the application to Chan.
Last week, the Presidential Office said the government would apply for full WHO membership once again under the name “Taiwan” as well as observer status at the WHA, even though president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said the membership bid should be under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
Many countries, including the US and EU members protested Taiwan’s strategy last year, saying using the name “Taiwan” instead of the “Republic of China” could be taken as a provocative move that might upset the “status quo.”
Hsu, however, said using the name “Taiwan” should not be taken as a move to alter Taiwan’s official name, becausw “that is how our country is commonly known in the world.”
Hsu said Taiwan would not ask for “meaningful participation” in the WHO as it has done in previous years because “this had little positive effect.”
“We can see that the rate of Taiwanese experts’ attendance at WHO-related technical meetings did not have any significant increase in spite of our repeated bids for meaningful participation,” she said.
Taiwan was kicked out of the WHO in 1972 after it forfeited its UN seat in 1971. It has been trying to return to the WHO by asking to become an observer at the annual WHA meeting.
However, China has blocked each bid, saying that it has sole health jurisdiction over Taiwan, and that Taipei does not deserve to have separate representation.
Beijing also signed a secret Memorandum of Understanding with the WHO in 2005 to limit Taiwanese experts’ participation at WHO events.
Only 17 of 148 WHO members voted to add Taiwan’s membership bid to the agenda last year.
The US and Japan have been staunch advocates of Taiwan’s WHA bid, but are strongly against its attempt to become a full member state. They say they do not support Taiwan’s participation in any international organizations that require statehood.
Only six entities, including the Vatican, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the International Red Cross are WHA observers. They are allowed to attend the annual meeting, but do not have voting or speaking rights.
Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday criticized Ma’s stance on WHO membership, saying relinquishing the country’s sovereignty at the negotiating table would lead the country to peril beyond redemption.
Calling the “Chinese Taipei” name “grotesque,” Chen said both sides of the Taiwan Strait must put aside disputes over Taiwan’s sovereignty in an effort to normalize cross-strait relations.
The effort to put aside disputes over sovereignty should not denigrate or deny the nation’s sovereignty, or it will lead the country to peril, he said at the Presidential Office as he met foreign guests attending a seminar organized by Taiwan Thinktank to discuss Taiwan’s sovereign status.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
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