Online registration for this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) has ended and Taiwan did not receive an invitation to the global summit. The health rights of Taiwanese are being held hostage by China’s aggression.
The WHO constitution vows to ensure that people around the world have access to the highest standards of healthcare. Taiwan has long made considerable contributions in terms of material assistance, vaccination programs and expertise in disease prevention and health security around the world, and its health system is widely acknowledged as excellent.
Taiwan has also played a major role through its efforts in Africa and throughout the world in providing medical treatment without borders.
It is an exemplar of global health and provider of medical treatment.
The only party not willing to recognize this is China.
Taiwanese will never forget how during the SARS epidemic in 2003 Chinese representative to the WHA Wu Yi (吳儀) insisted that Taiwan had no need to enter the WHO, or how China’s permanent representative to the UN, Sha Zukang (沙祖康), said to Taiwanese reporters: “Who cares about what you have to say?”
When China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) said “no one China principle, no WHA,” Taiwanese were left under no illusion about how unreasonable Beijing was going to be.
Taiwan and Hong Kong had been left unprepared during the initial SARS outbreak — as had the rest of the world — because China tried to keep its cases under wraps. As more cases were reported, fear spread among the public, and the government and healthcare professionals were left to fight it head-on. Many people, including nurses, perished as a result.
Beijing has repeatedly tried to capitalize on the situation by blocking direct communication of vital information from the WHO to Taiwan, insisting that all information and assistance go through China. At the same time, China has told the international community that there are excellent cross-strait medical exchanges and that it will provide Taiwan with any assistance it needs.
This led the US secretary of health and human services to criticize China for blocking Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, saying that medical treatment should have no borders.
China’s insistence on political interference in matters of healthcare and preventing Taiwan from participation in governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as political and humanitarian organizations, has essentially isolated Taiwan, and the international community has started to lose patience with Beijing’s unreasonable stance.
Nobody would say that cross-strait relations have gone smoothly since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office last year, but room for goodwill remains on both sides.
The WHA is an important indicator of goodwill, and Tsai has been giving interviews to the international media and taking to Twitter to explain the importance of Taiwan’s participation in the WHA in the hopes of getting an invitation.
She understands cross-strait relations and belongs to the practical arm of the Democratic Progressive Party. China wants Tsai to complete her “test paper” on cross-strait relations, but if it also wants to act in a manner befitting a major nation, it will need to complete its own test paper on the WHA.
Beijing needs to understand Taiwanese resolve when it comes to access to healthcare and not underestimate the gravity of the situation. If it fails this test, it will drive Tsai and Taiwanese to extremes.
Neither the government nor ordinary Taiwanese will give up on this issue, and Beijing really does not want to have this driving a wedge between the two sides, pushing Taiwan away.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) has long wielded influence through the power of words. Her articles once served as a moral compass for a society in transition. However, as her April 1 guest article in the New York Times, “The Clock Is Ticking for Taiwan,” makes all too clear, even celebrated prose can mislead when romanticism clouds political judgement. Lung crafts a narrative that is less an analysis of Taiwan’s geopolitical reality than an exercise in wistful nostalgia. As political scientists and international relations academics, we believe it is crucial to correct the misconceptions embedded in her article,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
RSS