Tawain spurns China pact with WHO on assistance
Taiwan’s health minister on Monday rejected a pact between China and the World Health Organisation to help the island in any health emergency, because Taipei had not been consulted.
The accord, a memorandum of understanding, was announced at the WHO’s annual assembly by China’s Health Minister Gao Qiang during a brief debate on Taiwan’s bid - again unsuccessful - for observer status.
The Chinese minister said the pact would allow the U.N. agency to send experts to investigate any outbreak of disease on the island, which China regards as a renegade province.
Taiwan, which has said its exclusion from the world health body could undermine the international fight against contagious diseases, such as bird flu, would in turn be able to send medical experts for consultations with the WHO.
But Taiwan’s Health Minister Hou Sheng-mou told Reuters the offer was “rather ridiculous”, because Taipei was not consulted.
Qiang had made clear the memorandum reflected Beijing’s “one China” policy, the Taiwanese minister said.
“He did not give much detail, but he mentioned the principle that it is under the one China policy. Being under the one China policy, it will not be accepted by our government or our people,” Sheng-mou added.
Despite some declarations of support for Taipei, the WHO’s 192 member states accepted without a vote a call by China to take no action on the Taiwanese request for observer status, for the ninth consecutive year.
China says only sovereign states are entitled to take part in the assembly, which is meeting until May 25. Taiwan first sought observer status at the WHO in 1997.
“I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. I will go on trying,” said Sheng-mou.
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