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 (
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS