With the WHO poised to hold its annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, starting on Monday, the chance of Taiwan’s participation as an observer this year is looking bleak considering that, as of yesterday, it has not been invited.
While China’s oppression and obstruction of Taiwan is the main reason for the nation’s exclusion, some have pointed at the WHO for its unfair treatment of Taiwan, neglecting the health rights of Taiwanese.
The government is also not without blame.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has over the past week tweeted scores of messages calling for international support for Taiwan’s attendance at the public health forum, with government agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mainland Affairs Council issuing statements condemning China for blocking the nation’s participation.
However, the government’s other actions have highlighted its passivity and lack of confidence when confronting China at international settings.
The Tsai administration in May last year silently accepted the demeaning title “Chinese Taipei” at the WHA, the same title that had been used since 2009. In September last year, the government also decided not to pursue UN membership.
While a lack of action and assertion to defend nationality on the international stage might be the government’s way of showing “goodwill” toward China, such passivity has translated into weakness in the eyes of Beijing officials. Rather than stopping China from marginalizing Taiwan internationally, the government has played into Beijing’s hands.
Tsai’s pledge to maintain the “status quo” and a self-imposed restriction against demanding national dignity and name corrections at international events essentially means the nation is disarming itself diplomatically and diminishing its visibility.
China is taking full advantage of the Tsai government’s passivity to further its agenda, pushing Taiwan off the world stage.
In the year since Tsai assumed the presidency, the nation has been rejected at international meetings such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on Fisheries, the International Civil Aviation Organization assembly in Canada and Interpol’s summit in Indonesia.
Despite these setbacks caused by Chinese pressure, the government still dares not upset Beijing in the hope that “tolerance” of its obstruction might offer a slim chance of being able to take part in the next international event.
Pathetic.
With the one-year anniversary of her presidency approaching, hopefully Tsai and her Cabinet will wake up.
It is time for the government to stand up to China with a more aggressive approach to breaking through Beijing’s diplomatic blockade.
It is time the government employs proactive measures and addresses the injustice facing Taiwan, rather than accepting the “rules” dictated by Beijing.
Any sort of passivity on the part of the government only reduces the nation’s global presence, while bolstering Beijing’s false claim that Taiwan is a province of China.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, the largest naval exercise in the region, are aimed at deepening international collaboration and interaction while strengthening tactical capabilities and flexibility in tackling maritime crises. China was invited to participate in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but it was excluded this year. The underlying reason is that Beijing’s ambitions of regional expansion and challenging the international order have raised global concern. The world has made clear its suspicions of China, and its exclusion from RIMPAC this year will bring about a sea change in years to come. The purpose of excluding China is primarily
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the