Taiwan was not invited to a virtual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA) this week, which is expected to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, due to “obstruction” from China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said late on Sunday night, expressing its displeasure.
After meeting briefly in May with an abridged agenda, the WHO’s decisionmaking body resumed yesterday.
“The ministry expresses strong regret and dissatisfaction at China’s obstruction of Taiwan participating in the WHO and the WHO’s continuing to neglect the health and human rights of Taiwan’s 23.5 million people,” the ministry said.
The WHO’s refusal to invite Taiwan based on political considerations makes a mockery of the body’s “health for all” claim, it said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a Facebook post yesterday that the WHO would miss out on an opportunity uniting the world against the pandemic and trumpet its idea of “health for all” if it allows obstruction from China to exclude Taiwan’s participation.
Despite Chinese obstruction and threats, Taiwan will continue to strive for chances to prove that “Taiwan can help,” she added.
Several foreign missions in Taipei — including the American Institute in Taiwan, the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association’s Taipei office and the Australian Office Taipei — also voiced their support for Taiwan’s WHA participation on their official Facebook pages, with the hashtag “#HealthHasNoBorders” in their posts.
The ministry said that Taiwan would continue to seek full participation in all WHO meetings, mechanisms and related activities, backed by strong international support for its inclusion.
Among those sources of support was the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in New York, which wrote to the WHO on Thursday calling for Taiwan’s inclusion.
“We, Chinese Americans, strongly encourage WHO to reinstate the invitation for Taiwan to participate at the WHA,” the association said in the letter that was signed by its president, Justin Yu (于金山), and addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus.
“Taiwan is a critical piece in the global health conversation regarding COVID-19,” the letter said. “Because of their success in containing the virus and preventing large amounts of deaths, their knowledge is absolutely necessary and should not be excluded from being shared.”
It “makes no logical sense at this time” to exclude Taiwan from the global health body, and that international politics should not overshadow over the life of any human being, it said.
Chinese Ambassador to the UN Chen Xu (陳旭) yesterday said that proposals to allow Taiwan’s participation were “illegal and invalid.”
Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan and Reuters
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS