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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》PRC pressure stops WHA from discussing Taiwan
REAL AGENDA China has rejected pleas from 11 nations in support of Taiwan’s WHA participation, saying that was a manipulation by Taipei to enter the international arena
/ AFP, GENEVA, Switzerland
Despite impassioned pleas from several countries, the World Health Assembly （WHA）, the highest decisionmaking body of the WHO, yesterday refused to discuss admitting Taiwan to the meeting, under pressure from China.
Taiwan has been invited to attend the WHO’s main annual meeting as an observer every year since 2009, but this year it did not receive an invitation.
Representatives from 11 of WHO’s 194 member countries, including Nicaragua, Paraguay and Belize, put forth a proposal yesterday — the first day of the assembly — offering Taiwan permanent observer status onto the agenda.
However, the assembly decided without a vote to reject the proposal, leaving the issue off the agenda. Pro-Taiwan protesters were demonstrating in front of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as the gathering was under way.
Vincentian Minister of Health Robert Browne, whose nation among the countries behind the proposal, warned that “the exclusion of Taiwan erodes the credibility, integrity and effectiveness of this important assembly.”
His counterpart from Palau, Gregorio Ngirmang, agreed, asking the assembly how he could be permitted to represent 17,000 Palauans at the meeting “while we ignore the 23 million people in Taiwan.”
However, China hailed the decision to leave Taiwanese observer status off the agenda, insisting that it was Beijing’s decision alone.
“Taiwan is part of China. Questions regarding Taiwan are China’s internal affairs,” the Chinese representative at the meeting said.
Today “the political foundation for Taiwan, China, to participate in the assembly this year is not there anymore,” the Chinese representative said.
He rejected the notion put forth by the 11 countries that blocking Taiwan could hamper international cooperation and the rapid exchange of information on health matters.
The proposal’s real agenda, he said, was to help Taiwanese “authorities to manipulate health issues in an attempt to expand their so-called international space and challenge the ‘one china’ principle.”
In an interview on Sunday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung （陳時中） voiced deep disappointment at Taiwan’s exclusion from the 70th WHA and urged international pressure on China to ensure it has access in future.
Taiwanese media have also been refused access to cover the event.
However, Chen said he had traveled to Geneva anyway to meet health ministers and diplomats from more than 30 countries on the sidelines of the WHA meeting.
“We want every assistance to keep up the international pressure so that this condition will not happen again,” Chen said.
Chen said there were no plans to meet with Chinese officials during his trip to Geneva, but said that “for the health of both sides we are willing to work together if we have the chance.”
He said that leaving Taiwan out in the cold could be detrimental to global health, with international cooperation and rapid exchange of information seen as vital to halting disease outbreaks.
“We feel sorry that the welfare of human health is unnecessarily polluted by China,” he said.
Chen on Sunday held talks with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, in Geneva, with the US side reaffirming its support for Taiwan to take part in the WHA.
The talks, which Chen described as “pleasant and successful,” lasted 45 minutes and Chen said he has invited Price to visit Taiwan, to which the US official said he would take the invitation into careful consideration.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
