Taiwan Not Invited as Observer at WHA

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Taiwan Not Invited as Observer at WHA

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" Really a misfortune for the WHO"

The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) decided Monday in Geneva to reject the proposal of inviting Taiwan to participate in the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer.

While discussing the provisional agenda at the 109th session of the WHO Executive Board which started here on Monday, the representative of Cuba said Taiwan is part of China and that the proposal of inviting Taiwan to participate in the WHA should not be included as an item into the provisional agenda of the WHA.

The WHO Executive Board adopted the motion proposed by Cuba with a vote of 20-3.

Sha Zukang, ambassador of China's Permanent Mission in Geneva, said, "The Chinese government resolutely rejects the proposal of inviting Taiwan to participate in the WHA as an observer and opposes the inclusion of the proposal as an item into the provisional agenda of the WHA."

He said it is the first time that the Taiwan issue is raised at the Executive Board meeting of the WHO. He said, "This is really a misfortune for the WHO.

" Purely an internal affair of China"

The Chinese delegation cannot but express its regret over this new development." The proposal of "inviting Taiwan to participate in the WHA as an observer" has been rejected each year at the Assembly of the World Health Organization in the past five years.

The Chinese ambassador said, "The WHO is a specialized U.N. agency and only sovereign states are eligible for its membership. Taiwan, as a province of China, has no qualification whatsoever to participate in the WHA." Sha said, "Taiwan became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) this year. But WHO is not WTO."

He said Taiwan has been admitted in the WTO with the status of "Chinese Taipei separate customs territory" but not as a sovereign state. Sha said the Taiwan question is purely an internal affair of China and should only be resolved by the Chinese people themselves. No foreign country has the right to meddle or interfere in it.

"To raise a proposal on Taiwan's participation in the WHO, under whatever pretext or in whatever form, is an act of infringement upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China and an act of interference in the internal affairs of China, " said the Chinese ambassador.

China's position and policy on relations between international organizations and Taiwan

Taiwan is ineligible for membership of the United Nations and other international organizations whose membership is confined to sovereign states. The United Nations is an inter-governmental international organization composed of sovereign states. After the restoration of the lawful rights of the PRC in the United Nations, the issue of China's representation in the UNO was resolved once and for all and Taiwan's re-entry became totally out of the question. The Taiwan authorities have asserted that Resolution 2758 of the UN resolved only "the problem of China's representation," but not "the problem of Taiwan's representation," and demanded participation in the UN. We will never permit such a separatist act of creating "two Chinas' or "one China, one Taiwan."

On the basis of the principle of one China, the Chinese government has made arrangements for Taiwan's participation in some inter-governmental international organizations which accept region membership in an agreeable and acceptable way according to the nature, regulations and actual conditions of these international organizations. As a region of China, Taiwan has participated in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) respectively in the names of " Taipei, China" and "Chinese Taipei." In September 1992, the chairman of the council of the predecessor of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT), stated that Taiwan may participate in this organization as "a separate Taiwan-Penghu-Jinmen-Mazu tariff zone" (abbreviated as Chinese Taipei) after the PRC's entry to GATT. The WTO should persist in the principle defined in the afore-said statement when examining the acceptance of Taiwan's entry to the organization. This is only an ad hoc arrangement and cannot constitute a model applicable to other inter-governmental international organizations or international gatherings. (More)

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