The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday accused the Chinese government of lying and misleading other nations into blocking Taiwanese flights or tourists, after Italy, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Mongolia imposed bans amid 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) fears.
Beijing has repeatedly lied to the global community by claiming to take good cares of Taiwanese, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told a news briefing at the ministry in Taipei after being asked about comments Chinese Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Li Song (李松) made at the WHO executive board’s meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday.
Li told the meeting that “the so-called crevice to global disease prevention resulting from Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO does not exist at all. That is merely a lie and pretext made by Taiwanese authorities seeking to join the WHO assembly.”
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
China has provided Taiwan with the latest information about the new coronavirus based on the principles of transparency and openness, and last month it received two Taiwanese representatives seeking to collect information about the disease in Wuhan, Li said.
Ou rejected Li’s claims, saying that the Taiwanese sent to Wuhan were only able to gather limited information.
The WHO, yoked by Beijing’s pressure, has not responded to Taiwan’s request for more information about the disease, nor has it invited Taiwanese experts to join its emergency meetings, which hampers Taiwan’s efforts to obtain the latest information about the disease or joining discussions about preventive measures, Ou said.
The ministry protests the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ reiteration of the “one China” principle as a prerequisite for Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO, she said.
Regardless of the 2019-nCoV’s threat to the world’s population, including 23 million Taiwanese, China keeps using the fictional “one China” principle to exclude Taiwan from the WHO and other global organizations, which amounts to politically extorting Taiwanese, while showing its own evil and barbaric nature, Ou said.
The Central Epidemic Command Center said it has requested that the WHO issue corrections after the WHO’s No. 14 situation report released on Monday incorrectly listed “Taipei, China” as having reported 13 cases of 2019-nCoV, when only 10 cases had been confirmed in Taiwan as of Monday.
Ou said the Italian government showed preliminary goodwill by allowing China Airlines to ferry home stranded Taiwanese tourists after Rome on Friday announced a ban on flights from China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan until April 28, following the confirmation that two Chinese tourists in Rome had the virus.
After diplomatic negotiations, the Italian government allowed a China Airlines flight to land to repatriate 254 Taiwanese, who arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday.
However, with its ban, the Italian government made a wrong decision based on wrong information, and the ministry is continuing to ask it to understand that Taiwan is not part of China, Ou said.
Myanmar has not imposed a ban on Taiwanese airlines, but it suspended Myanmar-based airlines’ flights to 11 Chinese cities as well as Mandalay-Taipei flights, Ou said, adding that the ministry is negotiating with Naypyidaw for resuming flights with Taipei.
Local media yesterday reported that 228 Taiwanese were stuck in Myanmar after Myanmar Airways International suspended flights between Mandalay and Taipei.
The ministry is also talking to the Bangladeshi government to clarify that Taiwan is not part of China, Ou said.
Some Taiwanese have had trouble applying for Bangladeshi visas after Dhaka on Sunday stopped issuing on-arrival visas to Chinese.
A soccer team made up of Taiwan Power Co employees was also denied entry to Mongolia prior to their departure on Sunday for a tournament.
The ministry had not received any notice from Mongolia about banning Taiwanese visitors, but it has promised to adjust its immigration and customs procedure following the ministry’s efforts, Ou said.
In other developments, the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei Office posted a message on Facebook that the US government’s new quarantine measures for Chinese visitors do not apply to travelers who have only been in Taiwan.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods