Taiwan not on agenda, WHA decides

The 74th World Health Assembly decided on Monday to not include the proposal by a few countries to invite Taiwan to participate as an observer in the WHA agenda. Chen Xu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland, said that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and the Taiwan-related proposal is in violation of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, runs against the WHO's Constitution and the WHA's Rules of Procedure, and is illegal and invalid. He added that the Taiwan region's participation in the WHA must be handled in accordance with the one-China principle.

Also on Monday, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, said the Chinese mainland is willing to make speedy arrangements to send COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan to help the island battle a spike in coronavirus infections. If needed, the mainland is also considering sending epidemic control experts to the island and sharing anti-pandemic experience with it, Zhu said in response to a media question at a news conference.