OBSTRUCTION: Rejecting Beijing’s claims as spurious, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that only the nation’s popularly elected government can represent its 23 million people
Taipei Times
Date: May 09, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu and Lee I-chia / Staff reporters
Led by Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), Taiwan is sending a
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung speaks at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee on Thursday last week. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to protest Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s decisionmaking body.
Chen yesterday told reporters that the delegation would go to Geneva as planned to speak up for Taiwan, aiming to gain wider recognition from more countries and to let them know that Taiwan has the ability to contribute to universal health coverage, a theme stressed by the WHO.
“Chinese obstruction is the main reason Taiwan cannot participate in the WHA,” Chen said, hitting back at Beijing’s claim that Taiwan does not have a political basis for attending the global forum.
“I must stress that the WHO is an organization that takes the human right to healthcare as its standpoint and aims to ‘leave no one behind,’” he said. [FULL STORY]
