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.
An infographic titled “Passengers and crew from hantavirus-hit cruise ship transferred from Tenerife by country” created in Ankara, Turkiye on May 12, 2026. (Photo by Yasin Demirci/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Without the consent of the central government, China’s Taiwan region has no basis, reason or right to participate in the WHA,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun insisted. Rather than asserting that the W.H.O., acting to placate China, had blocked Taiwan from participating, Guo insisted that the Chinese Communist Party had made the decision as the rightful authority on Taiwanese participation in global events.
“To uphold the one-China principle and safeguard the solemnity and authority of relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the WHA, China has decided not to agree to the Taiwan region’s participation in this year’s WHA,” Guo claimed. “Any attempt to violate the one-China principle and engage in political manipulation by playing the ‘Taiwan card’ is doomed to failure.”
The “one-China principle” is the false claim that Taiwan is a province of China, rather than a sovereign state with an entirely independent judicial, military, and government system from the Chinese communists.
Similarly, China’s “Taiwan Affairs Office” issued a declaration of victory on Monday, blaming the government of Taiwan, which it considers a rogue “separatist” entity, for any confusion regarding its status as a country. Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua told reporters that China would only allow Taiwan into the WHA if it accepted status as “an observer in the name of ‘Chinese Taipei,’” the humiliating status that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires for Taiwan.
The Taiwanese government has vocally protested its exclusion from the WHA and announced it would plan parallel public health events to the WHA.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has no right to represent Taiwan at the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, or other international organizations,” Foreign Affairs Ministry official Chang Chih-sha asserted, affirming that Taiwan is “an independent and sovereign nation.”
The Taiwanese government accused the W.H.O. of being sensitive to Chinese political pressure and encouraged it to adopt instead a position of “neutrality and professionalism.”
The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Welfare jointly announced on Monday that they had coordinated a “Taiwan Action Team” to visit Geneva, Switzerland, the site of the WHA, to hold its own events. The team, led by Taiwan Medical Association President Wu Yung-tung, will reportedly highlight Taiwan’s public health successes and how Taiwan can help the world jointly combat health issues that affect all countries.
“We want the world to know that Taiwan not only has [semiconductor] chips, but also real solutions that can improve healthcare quality and efficacy,” Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang declared.
Taiwan is not currently believed to be affected by the ongoing hantavirus outbreak emerging on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean, but the country does regularly document a small number of hantavirus cases annually. As of last Friday, Taiwanese authorities have documented two domestic hantavirus cases in the country, which officials stated is on par with the average during most years. Both cases documented this year were men in their 70s. Taiwanese health officials have emphasized that they would invest in controlling rat populations and sanitation efforts to keep the risk to the public low.