Taiwan at 1st world health meet since Tsai takes office

By Li Ruohan Source:Global Times Published: 2016-5-24 0:28:01

DPP-backed protests challenge ‘One China’


Participants attend the 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, May 23, 2016. The 69th World Health Assembly (WHA), the main decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), opened here on Monday. Photo: Xinhua


 
A delegation from Taiwan on Monday attended the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva as an observer under the name Chinese Taipei, the first since the inauguration of the island's pro-independence leader Tsai Ing-wen, who has failed to explicitly recognize the one-China policy.

Analysts warned that Taiwan should stick to the 1992 Consensus or face deteriorating cross-Straits ties and other consequences.

Taiwan has been participating as an observer in the WHA since 2009.  Attending an international event such as the WHA was seen as a significant development in Taiwan's effort to expand its "international space" and a breakthrough in cross-Straits relations under then Taiwan "president" Ma Ying-jeou.

On Monday, the delegation, headed by Lin Tzou-yien, Taiwan's "Health Minister," entered the assembly and sat in front of  the Chinese Taipei marker, Taiwan-based Chinese Television System reported.

Outside the assembly, Taiwanese "civic groups," which many Taiwan experts said are backed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), staged a protest Sunday near the WHA venue, the Taipei-based Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday.

Chang Ya-chung, an international relations professor at National Taiwan University, noted that the DPP is making a scene outside yet remains silent inside the assembly, so it could claim it's attending an international event without acknowledging the one-China principle.

He added that the protest is the DPP's way of showing its supporters how determined its positions are, though "the DPP clearly knows the protest will make no difference."

DPP cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan said on May 8 that Taiwan's attendance at the WHA doesn't mean it accepts the one-China principle.

However, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said the authority of the one-China principle in the WHA Resolution is "unquestionable," the Xinhua News Agency reported.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the World Health Organization has always invited Chinese Taipei as an observer "under the UN General Assembly resolution and WHO resolution on the one-China principle," CNA reported.

Reports said the DPP protesters as well as Yang Chih-liang, a former Taiwan health official, are demanding the full membership of Taiwan in the WHA, which is supported by many Taiwan scholars as an "understandable expectation."

However, "expectations should have a limit," Ni Yongjie, vice director of the Shanghai Institute for Taiwan Studies, told the Global Times.

Ni added that such a demand totally reveals the DPP's political intentions, since being an observer could satisfy Taiwan's need for health exchanges at the conference.

Zero tolerance

The WHA conference was the first international event attended by a Taiwan delegation since Tsai's inauguration on Friday.

Tsai's speech, however, was regarded as "an incomplete response" by the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office as "she did not explicitly recognize the 1992 Consensus and its core implications."

What concerns Taiwan more is the possible shut down of existing mechanisms for dialogue across the Taiwan Straits, experts said.

Both the mechanism of contact and communication between the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the Mainland Affairs Council of Taiwan and the mechanism of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation are based on the political foundation of the 1992 Consensus, said the office in a statement.

Only an affirmation of the political foundation that embodies the one-China principle can ensure the continued and institutionalized exchanges between the two sides across the Taiwan Straits, it added.

Taiwan will suffer greatly as a trade agreement and cooperation under such a mechanism will also be stopped and there's no coordination mechanism when problems occur, said Chang.

More importantly, damaged cross-Straits relations caused by Taiwan's pro-independence moves could isolate Taiwan in global trade, he added.



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