Coronavirus threat shows ‘unacceptability’ of Beijing isolating Taiwan, US official says
- ‘Our argument is bolstered by the outbreak,’ says Jonathan Fritz from the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
- Washington has supported calls for Taiwan to be granted observer status at WHO’s annual gathering, which Beijing has prevented Taipei from attending
The global spread of the new coronavirus has prompted the US government to push back against Beijing’s isolation of Taiwan, a state department official said on Thursday.
“This Covid-19 outbreak only further underlines the unacceptability of Taiwan being excluded from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Health Assembly because the People’s Republic of China blocks every attempt to do so,” said Jonathan Fritz, deputy assistant secretary at the US State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
“We continue to push back very, very hard against that with as many of our like-minded partners as possible, and I think our argument is only bolstered now by the outbreak,” Fritz said, speaking in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the US response to the contagion’s spread.
“And I would point out that, you know, this push by the [US government] is fully consistent with our US one-China policy and, of course, with the Taiwan Relations Act,” he said.
Taiwan has 31 cases of Covid-19 and one recorded death from the illness caused by the virus, which is also known as Sars-CoV-2.
On Wednesday, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre banned all of the self-governed island’s doctors and nurses from visiting countries declared to be unfit destinations because of the outbreak, to ensure there would be adequate manpower to tackle the disease at home. The ban is meant to stay in place until the end of June.