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U.S. lawmakers urge international support for Taiwan to join WHO as U.S. criticizes China

Reuters
Date: May 9, 2020
By: Patricia Zengerle

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., left, and ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, talk during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. Engel and McCaul are among the lawmakers who signed a letter urging Taiwan be accepted in the World Health Organization (WHO).
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The leaders of U.S. congressional foreign affairs committees wrote to nearly 60 countries on Friday asking them to support Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization, citing the need for the broadest effort possible to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Taiwan, which is not a member of the United Nations, has been excluded from the WHO, which is a U.N. agency, due to objections from China.

“As the world works to combat the spread of the COVID-19, a novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, China, it has never been more important to ensure all countries prioritize global health and safety over politics,” the lawmakers said in their letter, sent on Friday and first reported by Reuters.

It was signed by Representatives Eliot Engel, Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Michael McCaul, the panel’s ranking Republican member, as well as Senators Jim Risch, the Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, and Bob Menendez, the panel’s ranking Democratic member.
[FULL  STORY]

Canada backs U.S.-led effort for Taiwan at WHO over China’s objections

Toronto SUN 
Date: May 9, 2020

A sign of the World Health Organization next to their headquarters, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, in Geneva on Friday, April 24, 2020.Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images

OTTAWA — Canada has backed an American-led effort to allow Taiwan to be granted observer status at the World Health Organization because of its early success in containing COVID-19.

The move is politically sensitive because China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and views any overture of support as meddling in its internal affairs, and because Canada is in its own dispute with China over what it calls the “arbitrary” imprisonment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Taiwan is also squarely in the centre of the Trump administration’s dispute with China and the WHO. The U.S. has temporarily halted funding to the organization over its allegedly inadequate assessment of COVID-19’s early threat when the novel coronavirus was breaking out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

An Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, first mentioned Canada as a country involved in the pro-Taiwan coalition, and Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne confirmed that when asked.    [FULL  STORY]

China official threatens worst-case scenario if Taiwan amends law

Taiwanese lawmakers propose removing wording in an act guiding Taiwan-China relations to line up with reality

 Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/09
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang. (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — China's Taiwan Affairs Office Spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) warned Taiwan "not to underestimate the strong will and determination of China's 1.4 billion people to maintain sovereignty and territory intact" at a media briefing on Saturday (May 9).

Ma made the comment after Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers proposed removal of some words in the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area to line up with reality.

The proposed amendment, led by DPP lawmaker Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘), wants to delete "before national unification" along with several other wordings. These are said to be the product of a mutual misconception between the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan's Nationalist Party at the time it was implemented in 1992 that both sides will one day reunify.

The wording does not conform to today's political reality that Taiwan is an independent and normal nation by the definition of international law. Though China sees otherwise.
[FULL  STORY]

Vice premier shares ‘Taiwan model’ with senior U.S. health official

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/09/2020
By: Stacy Hsu and Matthew Mazzetta

Image taken from facebook.com/chenchimai

Washington D.C., May 8 (CNA) The "Taiwan model" for fighting COVID-19 can be successfully adopted by democracies around the world, Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told United States Deputy Health Secretary Eric Hargan on Friday.

The two spoke at a virtual forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, with the China affairs scholar Bonnie Glaser serving as the moderator.

The discussion followed on talks between the two countries' health ministers last month, during which U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar pledged full support for Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization's (WHO) decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA).

In his remarks, Chen noted that Taiwan had confirmed only 440 COVID-19 cases to date, and had not recorded a locally-transmitted case for 26 consecutive days. Only six of the patients have died.    [FULL  STORY]

Virus Outbreak: No new COVID-19 cases: CECC

MORE BASEBALL FANS: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said that the CECC is considering allowing up to 2,000 spectators at CPBL baseball games

Taipei Times
Date: May 10, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff Reporter

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung yesterday speaks at the Central Epidemic Command Center’s daily news briefing in Taipei.
Photo provided by the Central Epidemic Command Center via CNA

No new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday, marking the 27th consecutive day without new domestic cases in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.

CECC specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said that 66,460 suspected cases have been reported from Jan. 15 to Thursday, and 440 have tested positive for the disease.

Among the infected patients, 308 (70 percent) were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, 96 (21.8 percent) had pneumonia and 36 (8.2 percent) had serious pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome, he said.

A total of 361 patients (82 percent) have left isolation after testing negative three consecutive times, 352 (80 percent) have been discharged from hospitals, 82 (18.6 percent) remain hospitalized and six (1.4 percent) have died, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Foreign Ministry: Allies may back Taiwan WHA bid how they wish

Radio Taiwan International
Date:\ 08 May, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that support for Taiwan can come in many forms

The foreign ministry says it will respect the ways that diplomatic allies choose to express support for Taiwan’s inclusion in the World Health Assembly.
 
The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the WHO. It is set to convene on May 18, this time online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.    [FULL  STORY]

Five reasons WHO must be rethought

A crisis mustn’t be allowed to let WHO lay us to waste

The Critic Magazine
Date: 8 May, 2020
By: Pieter Cleppe

The World Health Organisation (WHO), which is the public health agency of the United Nations, is in urgent need of more scrutiny. It’s one thing for European countries and Bill Gates, whose foundation is the second biggest funder of the WHO, to oppose Donald Trump’s decision to halt funding for the WHO. It’s yet another to look the other way when the case for fundamentally rethinking the WHO is made. Dislike of President Trump or other WHO critics should not blind us to the truth. Here are five facts about the WHO, highlighting how deep the problem runs.

1 WHO mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis not only put lives at risk but also caused severe economic harm

Despite being warned in late December that a new disease had appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the World Health Organisation continued to repeat China’s assurances that there was nothing much to worry about. On the 3 January, China’s National Health Commission ordered institutions not to publish any information related to the unknown disease, while also telling labs to transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions, or to destroy them. As Doctors who tried to warn the public had been punished, the Chinese authorities only announced the novel coronavirus outbreak on the 9 January.

It was Taiwan which had warned the WHO about the problem in Wuhan at the end of December, complaining that its concerns were not passed on to other countries. Taiwanese doctors had heard from mainland Chinese colleagues that medical staff were getting ill, which is a sign of human-to-human transmission. On 14 January, the WHO still tweeted that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”, even if apparently, behind the scenes, the body had been warning the United States and other countries a few days before, on 10 January, about the risk of human-to-human transmission. That’s still around two weeks after it had been warned by Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]

Chinese military transport plane enters Taiwanese airspace

Shaanxi Y-8 appeared off southwest Taiwan before heeding warnings and turning around

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/08
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

File photo of a Chinese Shaanxi Y-8  (CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Chinese Shaanxi Y-8 military transport plane entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) Friday (May 8), leading a jet from the island’s Air Force to broadcast a warning.

According to the Ministry of National Defense, the Chinese military plane had been training off Taiwan’s southwest coast around noon before it briefly encroached on Taiwan’s ADIZ, CNA reported.

As on previous occasions, the ministry said it is monitoring all aircraft and shipping movements in the vicinity of the island. After the Taiwanese jet intervened, the Y-8 left and the situation returned to normal.

Despite the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, China has not stopped its military movements near Taiwanese waters and airspace. From Jan. 23 until Friday, a total of seven incidents involving Chinese military planes were reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan unveils locally made ventilator prototype

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/08/2020
By: Emerson Lim

Photo courtesy of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

Taipei, May 8 (CNA) The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) unveiled a prototype Friday of what could become Taiwan's first medical grade ventilator amid interest in the device due to the new coronavirus outbreak.

The prototype, which the ITRI said was made within a span of 17 days, was introduced during an online press briefing.

"At the end of March, U.S. ventilator manufacturer Medtronic shared the basic design specifications of its PB 560 portable ventilator, free of charge," ITRI President Edwin Liu (劉文雄) said.

The ITRI locally sourced more than 500 components, involving mechanical parts, electronic controls, firmware, software, and data system integration, Liu said.    [FULL  STORY]

LSE-inspired school to be set up in Hsinchu

Taipei Times
Date: May 09, 2020
By: Rachel Lin and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Taipei School of Economics and Political Science foundation chairman Huang Huang-hsiung, left, holds a check mockup with Pau Jar Group vice chairman Lin Chia-hung, right, representing his father Lin Chen-hai, the group’s founder and chairman, alongside National Tsing Hua University president Hocheng Hong at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times

National Tsing Hua University and a private foundation yesterday signed a contract in Taipei to found the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (TSE).

Signed by TSE foundation chairman Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) and university president Hocheng Hong (賀陳弘), the school represents the first collaboration in the nation between a private foundation and a public institution to set up an educational institution.

The TSE is to be established inside the Hsinchu-based university, becoming the 11th college on campus, Huang said, adding that it plans to admit 10 graduate students in September next year, before gradually raising the number to 30 doctoral and 150 graduate students each year.

International students are expected to make up two-thirds of the studentry, with all courses taught in English, he said, adding that graduation diplomas will be conferred by the university.
[FULL  STORY]