China says Taiwan not eligible for WHO membership

BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan is not eligible for membership in the World Health Organisation, nor is it even qualified to apply, a Chinese government spokesman said late on Sunday.

The remarks came days after the self-ruled island applied for a full membership of the WHO under the name Taiwan for the first time.

"The WHO is a specialized U.N. agency which only sovereign nations can join," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

"Taiwan is not qualified at all to join or apply for a membership," Qin said in a statement on the ministry's Web site (www.fmprc.gov.cn).

China has claimed Taiwan as renegade province since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Nationalists fled to the island. It has threatened war if Taipei were to declare formal independence.

Beijing took Taipei's China seat at the WHO in 1972 when most countries and the U.N. started to switch diplomatic recognition to the Communist government from the defeated Nationalist forces.

Taiwan has sought observer status in the Geneva-based WHO in past years under its official name, the Republic of China.

But the attempts were all blocked by China, which has more diplomatic allies among the WHO's 193 member states than Taiwan, recognized by only a handful of small nations mostly in Africa, the South Pacific and Central America.

Taiwan says it needs more WHO participation for the agency's aid and expertise to combat diseases and epidemics, but China believes the bids are politically motivated and particularly distrusts its independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian.

"No matter how Taiwan authorities change their tricks, their attempt to use the health issue to serve 'Taiwan independence' will never succeed," Qin said.