《TAIPEI TIMES》 Minister urges WHO to invite Taiwan to attend WHA

By Lin Hui-chin and Jason Pan / Staff reporters, with Reuters

If the WHO is serious about its goal of “Health for All,” it would allow Taiwan to attend all of its meetings, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu （吳釗燮） said yesterday.

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Taiwan is excluded from most international organizations because of objections by China.

The WHO’s director-general should take the initiative to invite Taiwan to attend this month’s World Health Assembly （WHA） as an observer, Wu said at the legislature in Taipei.

The WHO should also “let Taiwan fully participate in all the WHO’s meetings, activities and systems, to put into effect the WHO’s charter that health is a basic human right and achieve at an early date its goal of ‘Health for All,’” he said.

Taiwan faces a “very high level of difficulty” in taking part in this year’s WHA, he told reporters later, but added that the nation is winning support from countries for its bid to be invited.

The WHO said in an e-mailed statement that Taiwan’s observer status at the WHA is a question for the WHO’s 194 member states to decide.

“Irrespective of governance questions, WHO attaches importance to its ongoing technical work with Taiwanese health experts,” it said. “The WHO secretariat facilitates the involvement of Taiwanese experts in WHO technical activities.”

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US “strongly encourages” the WHO to reinstate an invitation for Taiwan to attend as an observer.

This year’s WHA is to start on May 27, just a week after president-elect William Lai （賴清德） takes office.

Taiwan, which is allowed to attend some technical WHO meetings, said that its exclusion hindered efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

In other news, leaders of the nation’s 21 medical professional groups headed by the Taiwan Medical Association called on the WHO to invite Taiwan to attend this year’s WHA.

“When Taiwan gets to participate, the WHO can fulfill its motto of ‘Health for All,’” minister of health and welfare-designate Chiu Tai-yuan （邱泰源） told a news conference in Taipei. “We have an important role to play and must not be absent from the main meeting of worldwide health communities.”

Taiwan is known for its high-quality healthcare and effective results in combating global pandemics,” Chiu said, adding that it has provided medical support around the globe for many years.

The France-based World Medical Association has written letters for the past few years urging WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to allow Taiwan to attend the WHA, Chiu said.

The letters described Taiwan as a top student denied access to the classroom, he said.

“Taiwan must work diligently ... to gain more international support,” he said.

“We have 360,000 hardworking medical and nursing personnel in Taiwan,” Taiwan Medical Association chairman Chou Ching-ming （周慶明） said. “The nation’s talented medical and health personnel keep up to date on the latest technical advances and are happy to share their successes and experience with the world.”

A Taiwanese delegation of medical professionals is to travel to Geneva to hold an international conference while the WHA is held in the Swiss city, the association said.

The conference is to address the polices and implementation of an integrated national medical system, it said.

Taiwan attended the WHA as an observer from 2009 to 2016 under the administration of then-President Ma Ying-jeou （馬英九）, but Beijing began blocking Taiwan’s participation in 2017 after then-president Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） took office.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Monday said it was the fault of the Democratic Progressive Party that Taiwan could not attend the WHA, given what it called a “lack of a political basis.”

Taipei says Beijing has no right to speak for or represent it on the international stage.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES