World Health Organization urged to invite Taiwan to join World Health Assembly
- Self-ruled island has been excluded from the WHO and other international organisations amid pressure from Beijing
- Supporters point to Taiwan’s success in combating Covid-19, with only seven deaths and fewer than 600 infections
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As many parts of the world are reeling from surging numbers of Covid-19 infections and deaths, the WHO is due on Monday to resume its main annual meeting – the World Health Assembly (WHA) – which was cut short in May.
But while the meeting is expected to focus heavily on international coordination of the pandemic response, one international actor will not be present.
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Taiwan has been excluded from the WHO and a number of other international organisations amid pressure from Beijing, which considers the self-ruled island as part of its sovereign territory.
But supporters point to Taiwan’s success in combating Covid-19, with only seven deaths and fewer than 600 infections since the start of the pandemic.
The World Medical Association (WMA), a confederation of national medical associations that jointly represent more than 10 million doctors, on Thursday called for that to change.
“We believe it is both cynical and counterproductive to continue excluding the health representatives from Taiwan from participating in the World Health Assembly,” he said.
Next week’s meeting comes as the novel coronavirus has killed more than 1.2 million people and infected over 48 million globally since it first surfaced in central China late last year.
The United States and others have long called on the UN health agency to at least give Taiwan back the observer status it enjoyed until 2016, and the calls have grown in urgency amid the coronavirus crisis.
Over a dozen countries, including Belize, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands and Honduras, have proposed to discuss whether to allow Taiwan to participate as an observer, but it remains unclear whether the issue will even be allowed onto the agenda.
Taiwan and its allies argue that the international community would have a lot to gain by integrating it into the discussion.
They also warn that leaving Taiwan out in the cold, without direct access to information, could threaten efforts to halt the pandemic.
“We cannot afford a gap when it comes to this pandemic, but we are seeing a big gap,” Taiwan’s ambassador in Geneva Wang Liang-Yu said last week.
Tedros has said Taiwan’s participation can only be decided by member states with the consent of “the relevant government” – a reference to Beijing.
But Wang insisted the WHO on its own “does have the authority to invite Taiwan as an observer”.
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Between 2009 and 2016 Beijing allowed Taiwan to attend the WHA as an observer under the name “Chinese Taipei”.
