China barred Taiwan from participating in the World Health Assembly to punish its elected government for “obstinately” resisting Beijing’s efforts to assert control over the island democracy, a senior Chinese diplomat acknowledged.
“The Taiwan region’s participation in the activities of international organizations, including [the World Health Organization], must be handled in accordance with the one-China principle,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday. “China cannot agree to the Taiwan region’s participation in this year’s WHA.”
Taiwanese officials have lobbied to return to the global health forum throughout the coronavirus pandemic, which emerged from neighboring mainland China. The communist regime maintains that Taipei’s participation in the forum would represent a step toward Taiwan’s recognition as an independent country, but Zhao put a finer point on the controversy when he acknowledged the years Taiwan was not excluded from the World Health Assembly.
“Since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power, it has placed its political agenda over the well-being of the people in the Taiwan region, obstinately adhered to the separatist position of ‘Taiwan independence,’ and refused to admit the 1992 Consensus embodying the one-China principle,” he said. “As a result, the political foundation for the Taiwan region to participate in the WHA has ceased to exist.”
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Taiwanese officials denounced the WHO’s “continued indifference to the health rights of Taiwan’s 23.5 million people” in a protest over the weekend.
“Taiwan cannot remain on the sidelines, and there should not be a gap in global disease prevention,” Health Minister Chen Shih-chung and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wrote in the letter.
Taiwan reportedly was nominated to participate by the Pacific Island state of Nauru and the African nation of Eswatini. They are two of the 15 countries with diplomatic ties to Taiwan, as the mainland Chinese Communist regime requires countries to choose between the two. The United States severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979 but has maintained warm unofficial ties and provides weaponry to fortify the island’s defenses against a possible invasion — a prospect that looms over the world stage due to tensions between Washington and Beijing and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ambitions.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team endorsed Taiwan’s campaign to return to the forum, but an objection from China and Pakistan scotched the effort.
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“The DPP authority’s attempts will never succeed,” Zhao said. “We advise it to stop using the pandemic to engage in political manipulation and stop inviting humiliation.”
