Nation still locked out of WHO events: MOFA

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on December 1, 2006. It reports that according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan has still had difficulty participating in World Health Organization (WHO)-related events in 2006, despite China's claims that it welcomes Taiwan's participation in the international organization.

In 2005, China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the WHO and claimed that Taiwan would have "meaningful participation" in all kinds of technical meetings related to the international organization.

However, according to the Department of International Organizations under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is obvious that China has still been blocking Taiwan's participation in conferences and workshops held by the WHO. For example, in 2006, Taiwan had applied to attend 6 different WHO conferences held in Switzerland, Indonesia, Italy and Thailand, but only 2 of them had accepted the nation's applications. Even those two host-countries that accepted Taiwan's applications -- Italy and Thailand -- did not respond to Taiwanese applicants until shortly before the meetings started, so that delegates from Taiwan hardly had time to get prepared.

"We think China's signing of the MOU with the WHO was designed to create a false impression that it was willing to change its attitudes toward Taiwan. But the truth is that China never stops suppressing Taiwan's activities in the WHO," officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it is a worry that the WHO's upcoming director-general, Margaret Chan, former director of the Department of Health in Hong Kong, might further shadow Taiwan's future relationship with the WHO.