The Australian Office Taipei yesterday joined other nations calling for Taiwan’s practical participation in the WHO, after representatives of the US, EU and Japan, as well as Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, spoke up for the nation at WHO executive board meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, this week.
“As the [2019] novel coronavirus [2019-nCoV] continues to underscore so starkly, diseases do not respect borders. In this interconnected and fast-moving world, it is clearly in all our interests that the WHO does not exclude populations or potential partners,” the office wrote on Facebook yesterday.
“Inclusivity has never been more important as we work together to manage this immediate global health emergency and, longer-term, to realize the world’s health-related sustainable development goals,” it wrote.
Photo: Reuters
The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei on Facebook shared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s support late last month for Taiwan’s role as a WHO observer.
The posts came after US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Andrew Bremberg on Thursday urged the WHO to “engage directly with Taiwan public health authorities,” which prompted Chinese delegate Qi Dahai (齊大海) to reiterate Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, calling on attendees to stop “hyping up” the “so-called Taiwan issue.”
Since the daily meetings began on Monday, the delegates of eight of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — Eswatini, Paraguay, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and St Kitts and Nevis — have advocated Taiwan’s inclusion at the WHO to close global disease prevention loopholes.
They have been joined by delegates from the US, Japan, Germany (representing the EU), the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Belgium, which is very stimulating, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.
The number and strength of foreign delegates speaking up for Taiwan has grown significantly, showing that the nation’s bid to join the WHO has secured general support from the global community, the ministry said.
Most of the foreign delegates voiced their support for Taiwan during discussions about public health emergencies, demonstrating the global community’s concern about the rapid spread of 2019-nCoV in China, and distrust over claims that Beijing and the WHO have fully cooperated with Taiwan on information about the outbreak, it said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) on Thursday on Twitter called on WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to reconsider his statement praising China’s disease-prevention efforts, after Wu’s previous post highlighting the WHO’s misreporting of Taiwan’s confirmed cases and its reference to the nation using incorrect titles in its situation reports.
“One week ago, @DrTedros, you said: ‘China is setting a new standard for outbreak response.’ ‘China deserves our gratitude & respect.’ ‘I will praise China again & again.’ Are you going to stand by your statements or retract them? Hello?” Wu wrote.
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,”
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.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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