New Zealand sticks with support for Taiwan at WHO despite Chinese rebuke
12 May, 2020
New Zealand's foreign minister on Tuesday (May 12) said the united states has to operate for itself after China warned its backing of Taiwan's participation at the World Health Organization (WHO) could damage bilateral ties.
Taiwan, with the strong support of america, has stepped up its lobbying to be permitted to participate as an observer at next week's World Health Assembly, the WHO's decision-making body - a move which includes angered China.
Taiwan is excluded from the WHO as a result of objections of China, which views the island as you of its provinces.
Senior ministers in New Zealand the other day said Taiwan ought to be permitted to join the WHO as an observer given its success in limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus, drawing China's ire which asked the Pacific country to "stop making wrong statements".
"We have surely got to stand up for ourselves," Winston Peters, New Zealand's foreign minister, said at a news conference when asked about China's response to New Zealand's position on Taiwan.
"And true friendship is based on equality. It's based on the power in this friendship to however disagree."
Peters said he didn't think the problem would harm diplomatic ties with China, which is New Zealand's biggest trading partner.
Taiwan has reported only 440 coronavirus cases and seven related deaths, relatively low figures attributed to early and effective disease prevention and control work.
Peters praised Taiwan's response to COVID-19, the condition caused by the novel coronavirus, and said there was a whole lot for other countries to learn from.
"New Zealand's position on Taiwan is approximately its tremendous success against COVID-19," Peters said.
When asked about China's response later in your day, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand's position on Taiwan was only related to its health response to COVID-19.
"We have always taken a 'One China' policy, and that continues to be the case," Ardern said.
Ties between neighbouring Australia and China have frayed lately after Canberra needed an international investigation in to the origins and spread of the coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
China has dismissed such a probe as groundless, saying the united states has been open and transparent about the outbreak.
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