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One of the top stories from this past week was that a Taiwanese delegation participated in the World Health Assembly (WHA) which opened Monday in Geneva. There had been some stumbling blocks to participation this year, including a delayed invitation that contained wording that was not well received in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s health ministry said that this year’s participation had been successful, with the Taiwanese delegation holding talks with 23 countries and international organizations.
The delegation, led by Health Minister Lin Tzou-yien, focused on five issues this year, including noncommunicable diseases, health promotion, preventing the spread of contagious diseases, healthcare systems, and preparing for and monitoring contagious diseases.
The Taiwanese delegation held talkswith the United States, as has been the case in the past, but did not meet with the Chinese delegation.
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Also this past week, the Taiwanese public and media focused on President Tsai Ing-wen’s first week in office. One of the top issues in focus was Premier Lin Chuan’s move to withdraw criminal charges which the previous Cabinet had filed against 126 protestors from the Sunflower Movement of 2014. The protestors had been charged with acts of vandalism stemming from a break-in at the Cabinet building.
At the heart of the protest was the last administration’s passage of a trade pact with Mainland China without a clause-by-clause review. Student and civic groups launched the Sunflower Movement in protest, saying the trade pact damaged Taiwan’s economy and sovereignty.
Cabinet spokesperson Tung Chen-yuan on Monday said the premier decided to withdraw the criminal charges because the Sunflower Movement was a political incident, not just a legal case. Therefore, he said, the government should handle it in a more harmonious and less confrontational manner.
Tung also said that opposition to signing a trade pact with China has become a consensus in Taiwan. He said the legislature had acknowledged the positive contributions of the movement and introduced an act requiring greater supervision of all future agreements with China.
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And finally, this past week, the top official in charge of Taiwan’s push for closer economic ties with Southeast Asia and India says that the Tsai administration’s so-called “new southbound policy” is not aimed at finding a replacement for trade with China.
The official – New Southbound Policy Office Director James Huang – was responding on Friday to recent comments from the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhang Zhijun. Zhang had said that the “southbound policy” went against economic principles. He said that Taiwan’s exports to China are massive and that it would be impossible to find other markets to act as a replacement.
Huang responded by saying that the goal was not to decrease trade with China. He said that all of the major countries in the world, including China, have been actively engaging ASEAN nations. Huang said that the “new southbound policy” is economic, not political.