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The World Health Organization has again rejected #Taiwan’s request to join its annual assembly amid routine objections from #China and despite strong support from a coalition of countries including the US, UK, France and Australia. theguardian.com/world/2023/may…
The assembly in Geneva on Monday decided not to extend an invitation for Taiwan to attend the 21-30 May event as an observer.
Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs said its participation in the WHO was a matter of global public health. “Politics should not be allowed to take precedence over professionalism.
“No matter how the Chinese Communist party distorts Taiwan’s sovereign status, it cannot change the objective fact of our country’s existence.”
Taiwan’s exclusion reportedly extended to its journalists covering the event. According to the government media organisation, CNA, two reporters had been approved for press passes last week but access was revoked when they went to pick them up in Geneva on Monday.
The journalists said a UN staffer told them it was because of pressure from China, and nodded when asked if they “had to report everything to China”, CNA reported.
Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs accused the UN’s Geneva office of having “failed to act impartially” and urged it to not “give in to unreasonable political pressure from certain countries”.
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