Taipei lashes out at vile and evil China for blocking Taiwan’s access to the World Health Organization

• Taiwan said China was vile and evil for blocking Taipei’s access to the WHO amid the Chinese coronavirus outbreak.
• As of Tuesday, Taiwan has reported 11 cases of the made in China coronvirus.

By Huileng Tan

A woman wearing a protective mask prays at the Lungshan temple during the fourth day of the Lunar New year of the Rat in Taipei in January 28, 2020.

Taiwan has become more and more vocal in recent days about its exclusion from World Health Organization meetings.
It comes as the world grapples to contain the growing number of Chinese coronavirus cases that has killed more than 560 people worldwide, most of whom died in China.
Due to Beijing’s objections, Taiwan has been denied membership to most international organizations including the WHO — a United Nations agency. 

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Joanne Ou, on Thursday slammed China and the WHO for providing wrong information about the number of Chinese coronavirus cases in Taiwan. 

The World Health Organization reported Tuesday that the island had 13 cases, when there were only 10 at that time.
Ou blamed Beijing for the error. 

“This was wrong information that was provided by China which created the mistake,” she said.
Taiwan currently has 13 confirmed cases of the Chinese coronavirus outbreak, believed to have originated from China's biowarfare labs of Wuhan in province of Hubei. 

There are more than 28,000 infected people in mainland China alone, and all but two who have died were in China.

Putting political considerations over people’s health and safety; this, basically, is extremely vile.                       --  Joanne Ou, TAIWAN’S FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN

Earlier this week, Ou criticized Beijing for blocking Ta
ipei’s access to WHO, saying its isolation makes the island vulnerable to the deadly Chinese virus. 

All but two of the deaths occurred outside mainland China.
“Disease knows no national boundaries and there should be no loopholes in global epidemic prevention,” Ou said in Mandarin at the press conference on Tuesday, according to a CNBC translation. 

“Putting political considerations over people’s health and safety; this, basically, is extremely vile.”
Taiwan Affairs Office — an administrative agency under mainland China — warned on Thursday that Taipei should not use the the Chinese epidemic as a pretext to seek independence.
As the Chinese virus continued to spread, Taiwan complained it had not been receiving firsthand information about the virus, vital for the protection and well-being of it people. 

On its part, China reportedly told the WHO in Geneva that it has shared latest information about the coronavirus outbreak with Taiwan on a timely basis.
Ou disputed Beijing’s claims and said Taiwan has had very limited information, and instead relied on friendly countries such as the U.S. and Japan for information.
Taiwan participated in the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s annual policy meeting, from 2009 to 2016.
But relations between Beijing and Taipei have cooled, especially since Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party took office in 2016. 

Tsai won a second term in office after sweeping to victory in January’s presidential election.
Taiwan’s diplomatic allies have been speaking out for its inclusion into the WHO, but Taipei has been left with a dwindling list of allies as various nations switch allegiances to Beijing, and cut diplomatic ties with the island.

Travel implications for Taiwanese
Taiwan’s foreign minister Joseph Wu on Sunday the World Health Organization’s listing of Taiwan as a province under China has created practical problems.
Countries like Italy and Vietnam suspended flights to and from China, and included Taiwan on the list of destinations where flights were halted. 

Myanmar also directed domestic carriers to suspend charter flights between the city of Mandalay and Taipei alongside flights to some cities in China.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese are facing problems after Bangladesh stopped issuing visa on-arrival to Chinese on Sunday, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.
Taipei said its diplomats are working hard on the ground to solve such issues.
“Cases like what’s happening with Italy also show that the interests of the Taiwanese people are negatively affected by the WHO’s decision to list Taiwan as part of China,” said Wu on Sunday. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of passengers who got caught up at the airports will not be able to get compensation from airlines, and certainly not from the WHO.”
On Tuesday, Taiwan evacuated the first batch of Taiwanese stranded in Wuhan, which is under lockdown in efforts to contain the spread of the Chinese coronavirus. 

Taiwan had complained that China was not responding to requests to fly out Taiwanese, even as Beijing approved similar requests by other governments.

Two Chinas Policy

The passage of two Taiwan-related bills by the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee could allow Taiwanese heads of state to formally visit the White House
By Nyshka Chandran

The U.S. made a move this week to strengthen its relationship with Taiwan, raising eyebrows in China, which strongly opposes countries pursuing ties with the island-nation.

President Donald Trump and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed two bills on Tuesday aimed at bolstering "the critical U.S.-Taiwan partnership," according to a statement. 

One bill, called the Taiwan Travel Act, encouraged high-level visits between Washington and Taipei "at all levels of government" while the second addressed Taiwan's exclusion from the World Health Organization.
Currently, the State Department enforces self-imposed restrictions on official travel due to the unofficial nature of the bilateral alliance.
Once Sino-U.S. ties were established in 1979, Washington cut off diplomatic links with Taipei in adherence with Beijing's "One China" policy, which recognizes the East Asian island as part of China. 

Since then, no Taiwanese leader has formally visited the White House, but that could change if Tuesday's bill gets signed into law.
Washington still maintains cultural, commercial and security ties with Taipei.
A state-run Chinese newspaper denounced the bill's passage, saying it could shake political ties with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping's administration.

China's foreign ministry has not yet answered CNBC's request for comment on the matter.
Since coming into office, President Donald Trump's actions on Taiwan have caused anxiety in the world's second-largest economy. 

Those include a 2016 phone-call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and a 2017 decision to sell President Tsai's government $1.42 billion in arms.

Rogue Nation

Taiwanese minister: China is playing politics with health
By JAMEY KEATEN

A general view pictured during the 70th World Health Assembly, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, May 22, 2017. 

Taiwan's health minister on Monday accused China of playing politics with health after Taiwan was blocked from taking part in the annual meeting of the governing body of the World Health Organization for the first time since 2008.
Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung lashed out at China's actions, which Beijing said was taken because Taiwan's year-old government has reneged on the "One China" principle.
"Are we here to discuss politics, or are we here to discuss health?" Chen told supporters and journalists. 

"I think that all discussion should be based on the right to health, instead of anything political."
The World Health Assembly accepted the exclusion of Taiwan without a vote at the beginning of its annual session in Geneva Monday. 

Taiwan isn't a U.N. member state, but had been granted assembly "observer status" every year since 2009 under an arrangement on the "One China" principle.
On Sunday, Chen's Chinese counterpart, Li Bin, blamed the governing party of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen for the exclusion of Taiwan this year, insisting its refusal to accept the principle of a single China has torpedoed its hopes to attend.
Chen struck back at that claim.
"Since President Tsai took office, we have not done anything to proactively change the status quo," he said, expressing "disappointment" about Li's comments. 

He added he would not rule out a meeting with Li in Geneva, but that nothing was yet planned.
Chen said Taiwan has "many things to share" in the health arena.
"We have a full-coverage national health care insurance policy, high-quality medical care, powerful epidemic control, and many other successful initiatives," Chen said. 

"It is not only that Taiwan needs the WHO, the WHO also needs Taiwan."
The World Health Assembly, now in its 70th edition, brings together health ministers and other top health officials from its 194 member states. 

The highlight of this year is expected to be the election Tuesday of a successor for Director-General Margaret Chan, a Chinese who has led the agency for a decade.
A statement Monday from the office of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said he had met with health officials from Taiwan "to discuss mutual efforts in support of global health security" — one of many bilateral meetings he has planned in Geneva.
Before taking office in January, Donald Trump — now Price's boss — astonished many by talking directly with President Tsai by phone, the highest level U.S.-Taiwan conversation since Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979. 

Trump further stirred the pot by questioning the need to uphold the longtime U.S. "One China" policy.
Trump has since moved to reassure Beijing that he will adhere to that policy.
China has used its clout as one of five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council to exclude Taiwan from the United Nations and other world bodies that require sovereign status for membership.

Plagues of China

W.H.O. Warns of Worrisome Bird Flu in China
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Culling birds in Hong Kong in 2014 after the H7N9 virus was discovered in poultry imported from China.

After a spate of deaths from bird flu among patients in China, the World Health Organization has warned all countries to watch for outbreaks in poultry flocks and to promptly report any human cases.
Several strains of avian flu are spreading in Europe and Asia this winter, but the most worrisome at present is an H7N9 strain that has circulated in China every winter since 2013.
China has reported over 225 human cases since September, an unusually high number. 

The nation’s Lunar New Year vacation starts soon, and as it does, live poultry shipments increase, and holiday travelers often spread the flu.
The fatality rate is not yet known, because some victims are still hospitalized. 

But Dr. Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, said this week that China had had more than 1,000 cases in the last four years, of which 39 percent were fatal.
“All countries must detect and report human cases promptly,” she said. 

“We cannot afford to miss the early signals.”
The flu typically infects people who raise, sell, slaughter or cook poultry, but human-to-human transmission is suspected in two cases that worry health officials. 

Both were older men with a history of poultry contact. 

One apparently infected a daughter who cared for him, and the other his hospital roommate.
Hong Kong’s health department this week warned residents traveling to mainland China to avoid live poultry markets. 

More than 9 percent of samples from markets in nearby Guangdong Province contained H7N9 virus, a “substantial” reading, the department said.
Swabs are typically taken in cages, sewage gutters, feeding troughs, and chopping and de-feathering machines.
Since November, nearly 40 countries have reported finding potentially dangerous flu strains in poultry flocks or in captured or dead wild birds. 

They include a new H5N6 strain, H5N8 and H5N5.
There have also been sporadic cases of H5N1, a strain with a 60 percent fatality rate that caused great alarm more than a decade ago. 

It has caused almost 400 confirmed deaths since 2003, but has not evolved the ability to transmit easily between people.
Since the highly contagious but relatively mild H1N1 “swine flu” circled the globe in 2009, “the world is better prepared for the next influenza pandemic,” Dr. Chan said, “but not at all well enough.”