Taiwanese diplomat Vincent Chao has confronted WHO officials over Taiwan’s exclusion from global health meetings.
Chao is currently posted to Taiwan’s representative office in Washington, DC. He and WHO officials attended a virtual meeting hosted by the US think tank, the Center for Global Policy on Tuesday. The meeting was held to review the WHO’s decisions on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the meeting, the WHO’s principal legal officer, Steve Solomon, said that Taiwan has enjoyed the same privileges as member countries such as access to global health information. He also said that the WHO has been in contact with Taiwan on issues relating to the pandemic.
In response to comments that the WHO turned down 70% of Taiwan’s request to attend its technical meetings in recent years, Solomon said that Taiwan was able to attend eight of nine meetings it was invited to last year.
However, Chao said that the WHO holds over a thousand technical meetings each year. He said the WHO should consider whether eight meetings alone are enough to meet the needs of Taiwan’s public health experts. He also said that a 70% rejection rate is abnormally high.
Moreover, Chao said that Taiwan is not listed on the WHO’s webpage, meaning that officials from other countries cannot contact Taiwan directly to share important information on the epidemic.
Chao said that while the WHO says that the issue of Taiwan’s membership is for member states to decide, former WHO head Margaret Chan has said that the decision is really up to China. Chao said that the WHO should stop China from playing politics with global health issues and invite Taiwan to the World Health Assembly, scheduled to take place in May.