Source: China Embassy
Question: On May 7, US Secretary of State Blinken released a statement calling on the WHO Director-General to invite Taiwan to participate as an observer at the WHA. The statement reads that “excluding the interests of 24 million people at the WHA serves only to imperil, not advance, our shared global health objectives” and would be detrimental to collective international efforts to prevent future health crises. The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting also issued a communiquรฉ earlier, voicing support for “Taiwan’s meaningful participation in World Health Organisation forums and the World Health Assembly”.
Do you have a comment?
Hua Chunying: China has stated its solemn position on the content concerning Taiwan in the communiquรฉ of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting. The statement by US Secretary of State Blinken gravely violates the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiquรฉs and interferes in China’s domestic affairs. We deplore and reject it.
There is only one China in the world. The participation of China’s Taiwan region in activities of international organizations, including the WHO, must be handled in accordance with the one-China principle. This is a key principle established by UNGA Resolution 2758 and WHA Resolution 25.1, which has received broad support from the international community. It is the DPP authority’s entrenched “Taiwan-independence” separatist position that has depleted the political foundation for the region’s participation in the WHA. The DPP authority knows only too well that it bears full responsibility for this.
Driven by political agenda, the US is pushing the narrative that excluding Taiwan from the WHA will imperil shared global health objectives and would be detrimental to efforts to prevent future health crises. This is nothing but a political lie. As a matter of fact, no one cares more about the health and welfare of our compatriots in Taiwan than us. After COVID-19 broke out, the Central Government of China invited health experts from the Taiwan region, before inviting anyone else outside the mainland, to visit Wuhan, Hubei Province to see the situation on the ground. We shared 52 epidemic-prevention documents with Taiwan in 13 batches and updated it on the latest information for multiple times, including information on Taiwan residents infected in the mainland. We also notified it in particular of the information that the mainland shared the genome sequencing and routes to obtain relevant genome sequencing. By May 5, the Central Government had given the Taiwan region 258 updates about the COVID-19 outbreak. In March this year, a cross-strait virtual seminar on prevention policies and experience-sharing was held to share technical experience.
Based on the one-China principle, the Central Government of China has made appropriate arrangements for Taiwan’s participation in global health affairs. According to incomplete statistics, since 2020, health experts in Taiwan have participated in 16 WHO technical activities, including important meetings like the fourth Global Vaccine and Immunization Research Forum and WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization meetings. There is an International Health Regulations Contact Point in the Taiwan region. Taiwan also has an account to log onto the WHO event information website and has timely access to WHO information on public health emergencies through the website and the daily updates. It can also report incidents to the WHO in a timely manner. With the approval of China’s Central Government, the WHO Secretariat notified health experts in Taiwan three times of information about COVID-19. Taiwan has also joined COVAX. Experts in the region attended multiple times WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization meetings and got timely and full access to COVID-related information.
I want to draw your attention to one point. Isn’t it self-contradictory for the Taiwan authority to tout itself as a model for epidemic prevention and for the US to pile praise on Taiwan’s anti-epidemic outcomes while sensationalizing the narrative of imperiling global heath objectives? This exposes fully that the US claim that excluding the 24 million Taiwan people at the WHA would be detrimental to collective international efforts to prevent future health crises is purely political manipulation to justify Taiwan’s participation in the WHA.
I would like to stress again that the Taiwan question bears on China’s core interests, where there is not a single inch for compromise. As COVID-19 continues to rage, this WHA’s primary task is to focus on global anti-pandemic cooperation. We urge the US to stop hyping up Taiwan-related issues, which will not help with the global anti-virus cooperation and will be firmly rejected by the vast majority of members of the international community.
