BEIJING\/TAIPEI, May 18 (Reuters) – China said on Monday it opposed countries providing platforms for “Taiwan independence separatist” activities, after Taiwan’s foreign minister arrived in Switzerland for events on \u200cthe sidelines of a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting.<\/p>\n
China said last week it would once again \u200cnot allow Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory, to take part in the WHO’s annual World Health \u200bAssembly (WHA), which takes place this week.<\/p>\n
But as in previous years, Taiwan has sent a delegation to hold its own meetings and this year Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung has also gone, joining Health Minister Shih Chung-liang.<\/p>\n
“The Taiwan authorities’ practice of sending people around the world to wedge into conferences to grab attention \u200cis nothing more than the behaviour \u2060of petty clowns,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing.<\/p>\n
“It will only bring humiliation on themselves and is doomed to fail,” Guo \u2060said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says China has no right to represent or speak for the island internationally.<\/p>\n
Lin announced his arrival in Geneva on Facebook on Sunday, and on Monday President Lai Ching-te \u200bsent \u200ba video message to a forum Taiwan is holding \u200bin Geneva.<\/p>\n
“By joining the WHO, Taiwan could \u200cbetter ensure the right to health for all our people, and do even more to support the rest of the world,” Lai said.<\/p>\n
PARTICIPATION BLOCKED SINCE 2017<\/p>\n
In his current capacity Lin is not known to have previously visited non-EU member Switzerland, which like most countries maintains formal diplomatic ties with Beijing rather than Taipei and has a free trade agreement with China.<\/p>\n
However, since becoming foreign minister \u200cin 2024, Lin has made several trips to other \u200bEuropean countries, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, the \u200bNetherlands and Italy, drawing anger in Beijing.<\/p>\n
Taiwan \u200battended the WHA as an observer from 2009 to 2016 under the administration \u200cof then-President Ma Ying-jeou, who signed landmark \u200btrade and tourism pacts \u200bwith China.<\/p>\n
But Beijing began blocking Taiwan’s participation in 2017, after then-President Tsai Ing-wen won office, for her refusal to agree to its position that both China and Taiwan were part \u200bof “one China”.<\/p>\n
Lai has continued Tsai’s \u200cpolicy.<\/p>\n
“International organisations, including the WHO, must handle Taiwan-related issues in accordance with the one-China \u200bprinciple,” Guo said.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing \u200bby Christian Schmollinger, Kate Mayberry and Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING\/TAIPEI, May 18 (Reuters) – China said on Monday it opposed countries providing platforms for “Taiwan independence separatist”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[28189,351,36536,34803,12131,65,36467,14437,36535,27036],"class_list":["post-67356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-china-and-taiwan","tag-european-countries","tag-foreign-minister","tag-geneva","tag-lin-chia-lung","tag-taiwan","tag-taiwan-independence","tag-world-health-organization"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116595075675030086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}