The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will look into why the WHO has made Taiwan the same color as China on its H1N1 influenza global outbreak map, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) told a legislative committee yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said the WHO Web site showed China, Hong Kong and Taiwan as “red,” which means the area has confirmed cases of the flu virus.
Taiwan remains H1N1-free while China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand have all confirmed cases of the virus.
“The government must protest this immediately. This mislabeling has already had an indirect negative impact on Taiwan’s economy,” she said during a meeting of the Foreign and National Defense Committee.
Yeh said the tourism industry had suffered a 40 percent setback because of the pandemic.
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) demanded the ministry protest to the WHO over a memorandum of understanding (MOU) it signed with Beijing in 2005 to limit Taiwan’s participation in the organization.
The memorandum says Taiwan’s involvement in the WHO must be approved by Beijing and that all communications between Taiwan and the WHO must be via China.
The government does not recognize the WHO memorandum as valid.
“It is clear that Taiwan’s accession to the World Health Assembly [WHA] this year was an arrangement under the memorandum’s framework. Taiwan’s invitation from the director-general came after Beijing notified the WHO,” Kuan said.
Lin refuted Kuan’s assertion, saying Taiwan’s participation as an observer was a result of Taiwan’s direct consultation with the WHO.
He said he was certain Taiwan’s WHA observer status would be extended.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said the ministry had denigrated Taiwan’s sovereignty by not sending an official as part of the delegation to the WHA, which starts on Monday.
Lin said the delegate positions were all given to health experts. However, Paul Chang (章文樑), director-general of the ministry’s Department of International Organizations, would also accompany the delegation to oversee administrative affairs, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said the DPP’s criticism about Taiwan’s WHA participation was due to its envy of the KMT’s achievements.
Any party that cannot recognize the success of another “will never grow up,” he said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
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