Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/17
By: Leaf Chiang, Tai Ya-chen, Chen Chun-hua, Sophia Yeh and Christie
Chen

Brussels, May 17 (CNA) The “one China principle” has always been the basis for Taiwan’s observer status at the World Health Assembly, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan said Tuesday.

Asked by a reporter why the WHO has changed the phrasing of its invitation to Taiwan this year, Chan said in a media briefing in Geneva that the WHO has always invited Chinese Taipei as an observer “under the UN General Assembly resolution and WHO resolution on the ‘one China principle.'”

“And that has not changed,” she said.

It is the first time that Chan has made a public statement on the issue after the WHO invitation letter to Taiwan this year stirred up speculation that the assembly had come under Chinese pressure.

Chan wrote to Minister of Health and Welfare Chiang Been-huang (蔣丙煌) May 6, inviting him to attend the May 23-28 meeting in Geneva. As in the previous seven years, Taiwan has been invited to attend as an observer under the name “Chinese Taipei.”     [FULL  STORY]