The nation will apply for WHO membership and World Health Assembly (WHA) observer status under the name “Taiwan” this year, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Officials will also ask the nation’s diplomatic allies to propose at the WHA that Taiwan’s bid for observer status be added to the assembly’s agenda.
The decision was announced after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) chaired a high-level national security meeting at the Presidential Office late yesterday afternoon.
The Republic of China was one of the founding members of the WHO, but was forced to leave the health body in 1972 after the nation forfeited its UN membership the year before.
Since 1997, Taiwan has been bidding to re-enter the WHO by applying for observer status at the WHA, the organization’s highest decision-making body, which meets each May. These attempts have been repeatedly obstructed by Beijing.
In 2004, the US and Japan for the first time voted in favor of granting the nation observer status at the WHA. Last year, 110 legislators asked the Presidential Office to apply for WHO membership in April. Responding to their request, the president wrote a letter to the WHO last April asking the organization to let the nation join as a full member under the name “Taiwan.”
The legislature followed up by passing a resolution in May the same year supporting the administration’s efforts.
Chen said yesterday that Taiwan could not abandon WHO membership just because of the opposition it was facing.
Over the past eight years, he said, his administration had maintained an attitude of “standing firm, but moving forward pragmatically” to create favorable opportunities for the nation’s diplomatic space and participation in international organizations.
Chen said this strategy included being more flexible on the national title in seeking membership in international organizations.
However, he said, his administration had to seriously consider whether such a compromise sabotaged the welfare and dignity of the Taiwanese people while engendering more opposition from China.
Chen thanked president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for his input on the matter, which included using the title “Chinese Taipei,” but said that he had to put Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity first.
Ma last week expressed his displeasure with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s plan to apply for full WHO membership under the name Taiwan at the WHA from May 19 to May 24 in Geneva. Ma said he favored a bid for WHA observer status under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
The participants in the national security meeting at the Presidential Office included Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), National Security Council Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山), Acting National Security Council secretary-general Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) and Department of Health Minister Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂).
Earlier yesterday, Huang briefed Ma on foreign affairs.
Although Ma discussed the upcoming WHA and WHO meetings with him, the president-elect did not bring up the issue of which title the nation would use in applying for WHA observership or WHO membership, Huang said.
At a separate setting yesterday, DPP Legislator Yeh Yih-ching (葉宜津) criticized Ma in a legislative question-and-answer for proposing the title “Chinese Taipei.”
Using “Chinese Taipei” is a “giant step backward from what we have accomplished in the past few years,” she said.
Yeh said there was no reason to stop using “Taiwan” in the WHA bid, since it had already won support from countries including the US and Japan.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu and Mo Yan-chih
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