Taiwan makes new push for inclusion in World Health Assembly

Taiwan’s exclusion from upcoming World Health Assembly would harm global response to coronavirus pandemic and cant be excused by mere rules of procedure, island’s health minister said on Wednesday.

Chen Shih-chung told international media at a news conference that global health officials “have t been honest and failed in ir responsibilities,” in an apparent reference to U.N. World Health Organization that oversees assembly.

“As I said since beginning of epidemic, one is able to accurately predict how situation will be,” Chen said. “So most important thing in world pandemic is transparency. Each one has to share what y kw about it.”

Taiwan is claimed as part of Chinese territory by Beijing, which has excluded it from United Nations and its subsidiary organizations. China’s growing influence in U.N. has made officials wary of crossing it, even while U.S. has withdrawn from or suspended funding for some of its bodies, including WHO, which it accuses of mishandling outbreak and displaying a pro-China bias.

Chen said he ackwledged that U.N. member states would have to approve Taiwan taking part at World Health Assembly, to be held in in Geneva beginning on May 17.

However, he said re were questions as to wher WHO’s “procedural justice was manipulated.”

Beijing’s Communist leadership has increasingly shut Taiwan out of garings such as World Health Assembly as part of a diplomatic and military drive to force Taiwan’s independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen to recognize self-governing island democracy as a part of China.

Beijing has threatened military force to bring Taiwan under its control and has been courting its handful of remaining diplomatic allies to isolate it internationally. That has drawn a strong response from Washington, with whom Taiwan has strong but ufficial ties and which is its main guarantor of security.

At same time, Taiwan has been praised over its handling of pandemic, despite being just a short flight from China where virus was first detected late last year.

As of Wednesday, island of more than 23 million people had recorded just 438 cases of COVID-19 and six deaths.