Voice of America
Date: April 26, 2019
By: Ralph Jennings

FILE – Protesters take part in a rally in Taipei against Taiwan being excluded from U.N.’s annual World Health Assembly in Geneva, May 21, 2017.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan’s anticipated rejection from observing a third consecutive World Health Assembly will slow its access to world health information including disease outbreaks. But the government used to those rejections has found a series of backdoors to get the health alerts and other updates that it needs.

The 193-country World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual assembly May 20-28 in Geneva is likely to exclude Taiwan, political observers on the island say. China, backed by more than 170 diplomatic allies, normally bars Taiwan from international bodies such as this one because it sees the self-ruled island as Chinese territory rather than a state with diplomatic rights to join.

Taiwan, known for inexpensive universal health care coverage, gets the information it needs from diplomatic allies in the WHO and from members of private medical associations that are allowed to observe the assemblies. Though late sometimes, that intelligence keeps Taiwan up to speed on major issues, such as infectious disease outbreaks.

“Taiwan has been pressured by China for an extremely long time,” said Brian Chang, deputy secretary general with the 50,000-member Taiwan Medical Association.
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