China’s government yesterday criticized US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for urging the WHO to invite Taiwan to participate in a meeting this month.
Blinken’s statement on Friday adds to a similar joint appeal by foreign ministers of the G7 major economies in London this month.
Blinken’s appeal “seriously violates the ‘one China principle’” and joint US-Chinese declarations, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said. “China firmly deplores and rejects it.”
The US has no official ties with Taiwan, but Washington and other governments have expressed growing support for Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to Beijing’s increasing assertiveness abroad.
Blinken called Taiwan a “force for good in the world” and said that it should be invited as an observer to the meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s decisionmaking body.
He said it could make “valuable contributions” as the world tries to end the pandemic.
Hua accused Washington of making the appeal “for political purposes.”
She said it was “detrimental to future global response to public health crises.”
Hua said Taiwan is part of China’s “core interests,” a term Beijing uses to describe issues over which it might be willing to go to war.
“China has no room for compromise on this,” she said. “We advise individual countries to immediately stop hyping Taiwan-related issues.”
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas