China Blocks Taiwan from World Health Assembly amid Hantavirus Concerns

( Breitbart )

China’s foreign affairs arms gloated on Monday about Beijing’s successful attempt to block the democratic nation of Taiwan from participating in next week’s World Health Assembly (WHA).

The WHA is the World Health Organization’s (W.H.O.) annual meeting of member nations, in which parties discuss issues of global public health concern. The 79th edition of the United Nations agency meetings is scheduled to begin on May 18 and touch on a variety of topics, including ensuring funding for the W.H.O. after America’s withdrawal in 2025, the highly contentious attempt to pass a pandemic treaty that empowers the W.H.O. over participating states, and the growing concern about a hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship from Argentina.

Taiwan is a sovereign, democratic nation off the coast of China boasting one of the world’s most sophisticated health monitoring systems, in part as a result of having to respond to the 2002-2003 Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Asia. In late 2019, it was the first country to attempt to warn the W.H.O. about a documented outbreak of an unknown respiratory disease in Wuhan, China – the novel coronavirus that would go on to prompt a pandemic and kill over 7 million people.

“WHO mostly ignored our messages and never shared information as they do to other countries,” the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) told Breitbart News in March 2020.

Despite Taiwan’s proven record of success in public health, the W.H.O. does not allow it to participate in its events and does not recognize the reality that Taiwan is a country. Taipei regularly advocates for a place in the WHA but has been denied since the election of former President Tsai Ing-wen and her successor, President William Lai Ching-te, both solidly anti-communist leaders.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry asserted on Monday that it believes that Taiwan cannot participate in the WHA, or any other international venue, without permission from Beijing, as the Chinese government falsely claims Taiwan as a rogue “province” under its control.