American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman James Moriarty yesterday said that the US looks forward to Taiwan’s continued participation at the World Health Assembly (WHA) this year.
Moriarty told the opening ceremony of an international training workshop for mosquito-borne diseases that the “Global Cooperation and Training Framework is one of the signature programs of the US-Taiwan relationship, built on our long history of cooperation.”
The second International Training Workshop on Laboratory Diagnosis for Dengue, Zika and Chikungunya, a four-day public health workshop hosted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), began in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The workshop this year features 35 specialists from 18 countries in Southeast and South Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean, and has speakers from the US and Japan to advance technical skills in the examination and diagnosis of mosquito-borne viruses.
“With decades of close ties, it is only natural that the United States and Taiwan jointly address emerging global and regional challenges,” Moriarty said.
“Our cooperation with Taiwan on global issues has now expanded outward to encompass more partners in more places around the world,” he said. “Our aim is to provide more than technical expertise; our goal is to create networks, to build bridges between Taiwan, Southeast and South Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean and beyond.”
“We continue to support Taiwan’s meaningful and substantive contributions to the international community. In particular, the United States has welcomed Taiwan’s participation as an observer at the past eight WHA meetings. We look forward to Taiwan’s continuous participation at this important event,” Moriarty said.
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said that the SARS outbreak in Taiwan in 2003 — when he was director-general of the then-department of health — was serious, but as Taiwan was not an observer at the WHA at the time, the WHO unfortunately did not send any specialists to help.
Chen said that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent specialists to help Taiwan control the outbreak and established a standard operational procedure to deal with the epidemic, for which the nation is grateful.
Taiwan learned from the experience that cooperation with the world to fight diseases is absolutely necessary to protect the health of the global community, he said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official last week said that the WHO secretariat has not decided whether to issue a WHA invitation to Taiwan, but the ministry would continue to express the nation’s intention to attend the annual event.
“Our efforts this time have not been as smooth as before,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) told a news briefing in Taipei.
As Taiwan’s relations with China have cooled since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May last year, there have been concerns that Beijing might try to block the WHO’s invitation to Taiwan this year.
Last year, Taiwan received a late invitation to the WHA that contained an unexpected reference to UN Resolution No. 2758, passed on Oct. 25, 1971, which recognizes the People’s Republic of China as “the only legitimate representative of China to the UN” and expelled representatives of the Republic of China.
Taiwan first participated in the WHA as an observer in 2009, one year after then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office.
Additional reporting by CNA
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