Swedish lawmakers have voiced support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and called on other EU members to do the same.
“The WHO needs Taiwan more than Taiwan needs WHO,” Swedish-Taiwanese parliamentarian friendship group head Boriana Aberg told a seminar, the Taipei Mission in Sweden said on Wednesday.
The seminar was held by the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentary Association at the Riksdag to exchange opinions on Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, the Taiwan office said.
Photo: AFP
Nearly 20 Swedish parliamentarians and parliamentary administrative staff from the country’s four major political parties attended, it said.
As Russia and other authoritarian countries are increasingly threatening democracies around the world, EU countries must take a clear stand on supporting Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organizations, Swedish lawmaker Joar Forssell said.
The gesture would demonstrate their emphasis on human rights and their support for like-minded countries, Forssell added.
With a sound health insurance and public health system, Taiwan would bring valuable experiences if it joined the WHO, Karolinska Institutet Department of Global Public Health associate professor Birger Forsberg said.
Taipei has been blocked from participating at WHO events due to Beijing’s oppression, said Henrik Lars Barva, political editor of the Swedish-language Nya Wermlands-Tidningen.
With the Ukraine-Russian war ongoing, democratic countries should step up their efforts to support Taiwan as a demonstration of the free world’s firm support for democracy, Barva added.
Excluding Taiwan from the WHO due to political reasons runs counter to the organization’s constitution, which says that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition,” Taiwanese Representative to Sweden Gu Ruey-sheng (谷瑞生) said.
The nation demonstrated its ability to make substantial contributions to the international health system during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gu said.
Gu thanked the EU and the Swedish government for their long-term support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the WHO.
The association is one of the most active groups in the Riksdag, making 22 statements and proposing 12 motions to support Taiwan last year, the mission said.
Seventeen Swedish lawmakers visited Taiwan last year and the parliament is to send a delegation to Taiwan to attend the presidential inauguration ceremony next month, it added.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai