The WHO turned its back on Taiwan again yesterday as the steering committee of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO's highest decision-making body, decided not to include Taipei's application as a WHA observer on the assembly agenda.
Despite the setback, Taiwanese officials vowed to continue the country's efforts in joining the WHO in order to enhance the health and welfare of the 23 million people of Taiwan.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
"Taiwan will continue to go for the WHO bid," said Lee Ming-liang (
As the weeklong WHA meeting was opened formally in Geneva yesterday, the WHA's general committee held a closed-door meeting in the morning to discuss several issues, including whether to add the proposal to discuss Taipei's application for WHA observer status to the assembly's provisional agenda as a supplementary item.
The issue triggered extensive discussions during the meeting, insiders of the meeting said, during which six countries spoke in favor of Taiwan and 17 countries, as well as the EU, spoke in opposition.
Two EU nations, France and Spain, opposed the inclusion of the proposal on the assembly's agenda, whereas the US and Japan remained silent on the issue, sources said.
Spain said it did not support the inclusion of the proposal on the agenda and suggested that the second plenary meeting in the afternoon should arrange a two-to-two open debate on the issue, a remark termed by Sanchez Reyes, a member of the Nicaragua delegation attending the meeting, as "surprising."
France termed the proposal put forward by Taiwan's diplomatic allies as a "political issue" and thus opposed the including of the proposal on the agenda, Reyes told reporters and Taiwanese officials after the meeting.
On behalf of the EU, Spain later took the floor again in the proceedings saying the EU considered it was not "opportune to deal with the issue" because the case had already been "widely debated and discussed" at the WHO's Executive Board meeting in January, Reyes said.
A. C. Diallo, a member of the Senegal delegation attending the closed-door meeting, also briefed officials on details of the meeting.
Other major countries that voiced their opposition to the proposal included China, Cuba, Russia, North Korea, Mexico, Nepal, Morocco and Zimbabwe, among others.
Six of Taiwan's allies, Senegal, Burkina Faso, San Tome and Principle, Panama, Honduras and Belize, spoke in favor of Taiwan, with a majority of the countries citing the exclusion of the 23 million people out of the WHO system as a stark challenge of the "health for all" principle underpinning the WHO constitution.
The chairman of the meeting, Lopez Beltran, the minister of health from El Salvador, decided at the end of the morning session not to include the issue on the assembly agenda.
The decision put forward by the general committee was later confirmed in the afternoon session of the plenary meeting in the assembly after an open debate on the issue. Malawi and Grenada spoke in favor of Taiwan, while China and Pakistan spoke against the case.
Yusuf M'wawa, Malawi health minister, voicing the African state's strong support for Taiwan, said Taiwan's application as "a health entity" to the WHA as an observer, was a "pragmatic solution."
C. M. Curwen, minister of Health and the Environment in Grenada, urged the assembly that Taipei's request to become a WHA observer "did not interfere with the `one-China' issue .... It is a matter of human rights" rather than a political issue.
While the WHO spoke of "health for all," the exclusion of the 23 million people of Taiwan from the WHO system was simply contradictory to the WHO Constitution, Curwen said.
Curwen also said Taipei's intention to enter the WHA as "a health entity" could find similar models in the past, such as Taiwan's accession as a separate customs territory into the WTO, and its entry into APEC as an "economy."
Zhang Wen-kang (
"Such a proposal by a small number of countries is a challenge to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of China," Zhang said, adding that any move aimed at creating "one China, one Taiwan," or "two Chinas" was "doomed to failure."
Zhang also ridiculed Taipei's unprecedented proposal to enter the WHA as a "health entity," saying such a term was simply absent from any of the WHO or WHA related rules.
But heartening news for Taiwan's WHO bid came yesterday from Tokyo, as the Japanese prime minister instructed the Japanese delegation in Geneva to express related statements in favor of Taipei's efforts, sources said.
Michael Kao (
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
A car bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow yesterday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war. Kyiv has not commented on the incident, but Russian investigators said they were probing whether the blast was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces.” The attack was similar to other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed, or are widely believed to have been orchestrated, by Ukraine. Russian Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
RSS