Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto Director-General Chen Jin-ling (陳錦玲) called on Canada to support Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO, as it would be in line with the country’s interests.
By advocating for Taiwan’s integration into global health governance, “Canada can enhance global health security and advance its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region,” Chen said in an op-ed article published on May 4 on the Canadian digital media platform True North.
“Such actions resonate with Canada’s commitment to inclusivity, fairness, and international cooperation, contributing to a more robust global health framework,” she added.
Photo: Screen shot from Trending Taiwan YouTube
The WHO is to hold the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva from May 27 to June 1, during which its members are scheduled to consider the proposed text of the world’s first pandemic agreement for adoption, the organization said.
After negotiations aimed at finalizing the agreement resumed from April 29 to Friday, the member states agreed to continue refining the draft and submit its outcome for consideration at the WHA, it said.
“Alarmingly, Taiwan faces potential exclusion from these critical discussions despite its proven track record in global health security,” Chen said.
Taiwan’s exclusion would carry “tangible implications for global health,” citing the example of the WHO refusing to include the nation in direct communication channels for pandemic-related information exchange, adding that Taiwan’s continued exclusion might potentially undermine global pandemic prevention efforts.
While some fear that the next pandemic might be looming, Taiwan is still excluded from the WHO and its affiliated organizations, a letter to the editor written by Chen said in the Globe and Mail newspaper on May 3.
“Could treating Taiwan differently be a starting point to avert this?” she asked.
In the event of a new global pandemic, the burden on healthcare systems of other countries might be exacerbated because Taiwan is not able to participate in the WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network, wrote in the True North op-ed, titled “Taiwan needs a seat at the table in the post-pandemic world order.”
It is “crucial” for Canada and other countries to support Taipei’s inclusion in WHO mechanisms as “ignoring Taiwan’s capability and expertise in global health matters is not just a diplomatic misstep — it is a serious global vulnerability.”
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS