President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday thanked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for their support of Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO as the number of confirmed 2019 novel coronavirus cases in the nation increased to nine.
“Particularly, I want to thank the US, Canada, Japan and other countries for publicly supporting Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO, as well as other international friends who have recently voiced support for Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO,” Tsai said at the Presidential Office in Taipei as she reassured people about the government’s ability to prevent an epidemic.
“Taiwan is capable of and responsible for making contributions to the world. The WHO must not exclude Taiwan due to political factors,” she said.
Photo: Reuters
Trudeau, after circumventing a question by Canadian Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer about Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO in parliament on Tuesday, became assertive when answering the same question from lawmaker Michael Cooper on Wednesday.
“This is a question about Taiwan,” Cooper said, stressing Taiwan by spelling it out. “Does the government support the inclusion of Taiwan in international discussion about the virus? Again, Taiwan, yes or no?”
“Yes, Mr Speaker. As we did during the time of the SARS virus, we support Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international multilateral forums. Especially when its presence provides important contributions to the global public good. We believe that Taiwan’s role as an observer in World Health Assembly meetings is in the best interest of the international health community and it also is an important partner in the fight against this epidemic,” Trudeau said.
Photo: AFP
His remarks were greeted by applause.
It was the first time that a Canadian prime minister had publicly voiced support for Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO, following similar gestures by Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and former Canadian minister of health Ginette Petitpas Taylor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Separately yesterday, Abe told the Japanese parliament that Taiwan’s participation in the WHO is necessary to effectively combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Kyodo news reported.
“It will be difficult to maintain health and prevent further infections in this region if [Taiwan] is excluded for political reasons,” Abe was cited as saying. “We will continue to make our country’s stance clear at the WHO.”
On Wednesday, Saint Lucian Prime Minister Allen Chastanet issued a statement calling on the WHO to include Taiwan.
“Given Taiwan’s proximity, its importance as a transport hub and its 23 million population, Saint Lucia urgently calls on the WHO ... to ensure that there is full involvement of the Taiwanese authorities in the international consultations, planning and decisionmaking to monitor, control and ultimately halt the further spread of the coronavirus,” the statement said.
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
‘TOO RESTRICTIVE’: Ending US sales of weapons that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric’ would hamper Taiwan’s defense against China, two business groups said Taiwan’s weapons procurement decisions are made based on its needs, and are not influenced by individual arms dealers, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday after two US business groups questioned a US official’s comment on arms sales to Taiwan. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Mira Resnick told the business groups via video link on Saturday that Washington would adjust the types of weapons sold to Taiwan and end “most arms sales to Taiwan that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric.’” The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan and the US-Taiwan Business Council on Monday
Local COVID-19 cases are expected to continue rising in the upcoming week, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported a record-high 85,310 new domestic cases and 41 deaths. Daily case numbers had remained in the 60,000s for the past six days before surging about 30 percent yesterday, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said the number of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests conducted on Tuesday also marked a record-high of 112,915, with a
RSS