Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung(Photo Courtesy of CNA)
Taipei, May 20 (CNA) Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung departed early Saturday for Geneva, where he is expected to hold talks with representatives of the World Health Assembly (WHA)participating countries as well as protest to China over Taiwan's exclusion from this year's event.
Prior to his departure, Chen reiterated the necessity for Taiwan to take part in the WHA and urged the world to recognize the importance of Taiwan's existence.
He said officials of many countries have agreed to hold talks with his delegation while in Geneva but he would not name any of those countries.
During the bilateral and multilateral talks, Taiwan will share its experiences in the areas of health and medicine with the WHA participants, he said.
Also, he said Taiwan must express its protest and anger to China while in Geneva.
Taiwan had hoped to attend this year's WHA in Geneva from May 22-31 as an observer, as it had done in the past few years, but it did not receive an invitation from the World Health Organization (WHO) clearly because of China's opposition.
The WHA is the WHO's decision-making body and meets annually to discuss health issues of global concern and formulate policies.
Taiwan first attended the WHA meeting as an observer in 2009, a year after former President Ma Ying-jeou came to power and pursued a more conciliatory policy toward Beijing.
Taiwan had taken part in every WHA meeting since then, until this year.
Its exclusion is widely seen as the latest move by China to clamp down on Taiwan's international participation, a strategy that has become more aggressive since President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in May 2016.
Tsai has ignored Beijing's precondition for building relations -- that she first accept that there is only one China in the world, with each side free to define what that means.
