Taiwan Blasts WHO for Saying It’s Part of China in Virus Report

07 Feb 2020, 01:30 AM IST

(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan’s foreign minister criticized the World Health Organization for referring to the island as part of China amid a worsening coronavirus outbreak.

“@WHO, what’s wrong with you? First you called us ‘Taiwan, China,’ then you changed to ‘Taipei.’ You misreported the confirmed cases, & now you call us ‘Taipei & Environs.’ Look! Taiwan is #Taiwan & not any part of the #PRC,” foreign minister Joseph Wu wrote in a sharply worded tweet Thursday.

As a United Nations body, the WHO treats the separately governed island as part of China, a view Taiwan’s government rejects. The WHO was forced to correct its coronavirus situation report Monday after erroneously saying there were 13 cases in Taiwan. Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control says there have been 11 confirmed cases of the virus in Taiwan so far.

Other WHO reports have referred to Taiwan as its capital “Taipei & environs.”

The tweet was posted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s official account and signed “JW,” indicating it came directly from the minister.

Wu isn’t the only one to have challenged the WHO’s treatment of Taiwan. U.S. politicians, including Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Cory Gardner, have in the past week called for Taiwan’s immediate inclusion in the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.

While Taiwan’s government was a founding member of the United Nations, the People’s Republic of China took its seat in the body, and all subordinate organizations, in 1971. China considers Taiwan a part of its territory despite the People’s Republic never having controlled the island.

To contact the reporters on this story: Samson Ellis in Taipei at sellis29@bloomberg.net;Cindy Wang in Taipei at hwang61@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Michael Sin, Karen Leigh