Overview
- WHO member states rejected a proposal Monday to invite Taiwan to the World Health Assembly after China, backed by Pakistan, opposed the move under its one-China policy.
- The president of the 79th WHA, Víctor Elías Atallah Lajam, declined to add the supplementary agenda item, which kept Taiwan off this year’s agenda.
- Supporters including Palau and Paraguay argued the exclusion is unjustified and weakens disease surveillance, saying it leaves 23.5 million people outside direct WHO information-sharing.
- Taiwan’s foreign minister Lin Chia-lung traveled to Geneva for side events and said China’s pressure drives the ban, while China’s Foreign Ministry denounced his visit and called Taiwan’s representatives “petty clowns.”
- Taiwan last attended the WHA as an observer from 2009 to 2016, and Beijing has blocked participation since 2017, marking the tenth straight year without a seat.