Focus Taiwan
Date: 11/04/2020
By: Yang Ming-chu and Evelyn Kao

Tokyo, Nov. 4 (CNA) A bipartisan group in Japan's parliament passed a resolution Wednesday in support of Taiwan's bid to participate in the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA).

The resolution passed by the Japan-ROC Diet Members' Consultative Council, comprising more than 280 parliamentarians across party lines, was immediately handed to Shigeki Takizaki, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau; and Masaaki Iuchi, senior assistant minister in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

The group's consistent position is that there should be no geographical gaps in international disease prevention efforts, and the global COVID-19 pandemic serves as an adequate justification for that view, the group said in the resolution.

Taiwan, which is separated from China by merely a strait, has successfully protected its people in the fight against COVID-19, as it took early action, according to the resolution, which was passed during a meeting convened by the group's chairman Keiji Furuya.    [FULL  STORY]