The World Organisation for Animal Heath (OIE) will revise its charter to change the term “member country” to “member” as a friendly gesture to Taiwan, a senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
Taiwan gained entry to the OIE in 1954 under the name “Republic of China (Taiwan),” but was forced to change its title to “Taipei China” after Beijing was admitted to the organization in 1992.
In 2007, China again pressured members of the Paris-based OIE to adopt a resolution downgrading Taiwan’s membership status to “non-sovereign regional member.”
Although China succeeded in having Taiwan’s membership status downgraded, the OIE agreed to change Taiwan’s title from “Taipei China” to “Chinese Taipei” after the intervention of the US, Japan and the EU.
But as the OIE Charter makes no mention of “non-sovereign regional members,” there was no basis for the 2007 resolution, the official said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The OIE Secretariat plans to revise the charter to replace the term “member country” with “member,” he said, to avoid the differentiation of members as “member countries” and “non-sovereign regional members” and ensure that all members are on an equal footing.
The official said the change would make it clear that the 2007 resolution was baseless.
He said the ministry was happy with the OIE’s move and hoped that other international organizations would realize that Taiwan and China had stopped their political wrangling and treat Taiwan fairly so that it could deepen its contributions to the international community.
He also said the 2007 resolution had not affected the OIE’s operations or Taiwan’s participation.
When Council of Agriculture official Sung Hua-tsung (宋華聰) attended OIE meetings, he still wore a name tag bearing the word “member” as did the representatives of other member states. On the OIE Web site, Taiwan was listed as one of the 172 member states under the name “Taipei (Chinese),” the official said.
The ministry official said nonpolitical international bodies like the OIE were unhappy with political wrangling between Taiwan and China at the organizations.
Cross-strait relations have warmed since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office last year, the official said, and the world has seen the benefits of increased cross-strait interaction.
The 77th OIE assembly will be held between May 24 and May 29 in Paris.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
RSS