The WHO has not changed the “status quo” of how it collaborates with Taiwanese health authorities, the global health body said on Thursday, after Japanese Minister of Finance Satsuki Katayama said the organization plans to strengthen ties with Taiwan.
Katayama on Saturday last week in a post on X said that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed an intention to strengthen relations with Taiwan while he was attending a high-level universal health coverage forum in Tokyo last week.
“WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explicitly said the ties with Taiwan will be strengthened,” she cited Ghebreyesus as saying.
Photo:: Reuters
However, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post on Thursday reported that the WHO, in response to the media outlet’s query about Katayama’s post, said the organization has not changed its position on relations with Taiwan.
“Our position is that we have existing relations with Taiwanese health partners,” a WHO representative told the paper.
Speaking to the Taipei Times, a WHO representative said that comments regarding Taiwan attributed to Ghebreyesus involved “an apparent misinterpretation.”
Ghebreyesus described the WHO’s technical collaboration with Taiwanese experts via an interpreter during a meeting with Katayama, the representative said.
His comments were made within the WHO’s legal framework, which states that “the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate representative of China to the WHO,” the representative said.
The collaboration “reached its highest levels” in recent years due to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the “status quo” of how the WHO works with Taiwanese experts on health issues, the representative said.
“At no time did Dr Tedros mention any change in this arrangement,” the representative said.
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