2025-1-10

On December 6, 2024, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang met with a delegation from the World Medical Association including WMA President Ashok Philip, Chair of Council Park Jung-yul, and Secretary General Otmar Kloiber. Tien welcomed the group to Taiwan and thanked the WMA for its long-standing and staunch support for Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization and its related mechanisms. He said that he looked forward to Taiwan expanding cooperation with the WMA on global medical health issues and hoped that the partnership between the Taiwan Medical Association and the WMA would continue to deepen. 

Given the current global situation, Tien said that joint cooperation and resource sharing were more important than ever to address medical and health issues. He added that as a force for good in the international community, Taiwan was willing to share its resources and experiences. For example, Tien said, during the pandemic, Taiwan had donated medical supplies to over 80 countries and helped raise healthcare standards in other nations through the One Country, One Center project. The deputy minister underlined his appreciation of the WMA for consistently urging the WHO to include Taiwan.

In his remarks, Philip praised Taiwan for its progress in medical care and stressed the importance of its participation in the global health system. Park noted that South Korea had learned from Taiwan’s advanced healthcare system and said that he was happy to see Taiwan continuing to engage with the international community. Kloiber said that Taiwan’s healthcare system ranked highly internationally and argued that both Taiwan and the world would benefit from its inclusion in the global health system.