TAIWAN ACCUSES CHINA OF RISK TO GLOBAL HEALTH OVER WHO BAN

TAIPEI: Taipei accused China on Thursday of endangering the health of Taiwanese people and compromising global epidemic prevention by blocking it from the World Health Organization ( WHO), as its hopes of attending a major meeting next month dim. The island’s foreign ministry accused China on Thursday of having a “secret arrangement” with WHO granting Beijing power to veto its attendance even at smaller technical briefings. Out of the 154 WHO briefings Taiwan applied for between 2009 and 2017, only 46 were approved, the foreign ministry said in a statement. It also said China had delayed timely notification of health information to Taiwan. “The unilateral arrangement between China and the WHO not only poses a threat to the health of the Taiwanese people, but it also causes a loophole in global epidemic prevention,” it said. Last year was the first time in eight years that Taiwan was not granted access to the World Health Assembly—the WHO’s main annual meeting— due to pressure from Beijing as part of its efforts to exclude the island from international events. Taiwan has yet to receive an invitation to the WHA assembly in Geneva next month. The comments came in response to a Wednesday statement from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office ( TAO), which said Taiwanese experts were free to attend WHO conferences aside from the WHA and were still receiving timely information on disease prevention. The foreign ministry said the TAO statement was “untrue.”