Editor's Note: Zhou Wenxing is assistant professor at School of International Studies, Nanjing University and former Asia Fellow at John F. Kennedy School, Harvard University. He writes extensively on comparative politics and international relations, with an emphasis on the Taiwan issue and China-U.S. relations. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Every year since 1971, China's Taiwan region has been straining every nerve to become an official part of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the highest decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet Taiwan keeps encountering a series of failures including on May 23, the second day of the 75th WHA held summit scheduled from May 22 to 28, when the WHA and its General Committee separately decided not to consider a proposal on Taiwan's participation in the annual assembly as an observer.

This is the sixth year in a row since 2017 that the WHA has rejected the Taiwan region's bid at the annual conference. This suggests that Taiwan's efforts are turning futile by expanding its so-called "international space" via violating the basic norms and international law governing international relations that are widely shared by the international community.

The legal basis and international consensus concerning the Taiwan question is the one-China principle, i.e., there is only one China and Taiwan remains an inalienable part of China. All countries that have established diplomatic relations with China recognize this principle as the essential political foundation guiding their bilateral relations with Beijing.

This principle is also enshrined in two main international documents. Both the 1971 UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 and 1972 WHA Resolution 25.1 restore all their rights to the Chinese mainland and recognize the representatives of the mainland as "the only lawful representatives of China."

According to this context, Taiwan authorities are confronting the one-China principle when assessing their prospects for participation in international organizations such as the WHA. The Taiwan region was invited by the WHO Director General to participate in the WHA as an observer under the name of "Chinese Taipei" from 2009 to 2016. The region became part of the international health group because its then leader Ma Ying-jeou and his Kuomintang (KMT) recognized that both sides across the Taiwan Straits belong to one and the same China.

Nonetheless the region has since been excluded by the WHA in the past six consecutive years. The main reason lies in not only the separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities unwillingness to accept of the historic fact and legal basis of the one-China principle but also their push towards an apparent "independence" agenda inside and outside the island.

Specifically, the DPP authorities claimed that the mainland is utilizing its political tools and depriving the island of opportunities to engage global health governance on the one hand. On the other hand, in order to balance against the mainland, Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen and her DPP colleagues have doubled down on their efforts to cooperate with the U.S. and Japan in terms of "international space," security and economy, among others.

The U.S. and Japan have stronger willingness to "help" Taiwan for its inclusion in the WHA at a time when the mainland is labeled as a "strategic competitor." To this end, U.S. senior officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, adopted various approaches, such as imposing stronger pressure on the WHO leadership and U.S. allies, as well as their respective partners.

U.S. Congress stands more determined in this regard. U.S. President Joe Biden signed an act - which requires U.S. executive branch to develop a strategy to regain observer status for Taiwan - proposed by the Senate as a formal law earlier this month.

The WHA rejected Taiwan again, and the vast majority of countries in the world also oppose Taiwan's participation in the annual event unless it adheres to the one-China principle. In fact, nearly 90 countries expressed their support of the principle and opposition to the Taiwan-related resolution mainly by sending letters to the WHO before the opening of the WHA.

This case again demonstrates that the Taiwan-related proposal introduced by a few countries - which has "no legal basis," "no factual basis," and "no international consensus," as stated by Chen Xu, China's Permanent Representative to the UN Office, during the WHA meeting at Geneva on Monday - could never out-compete the international consensus on the Taiwan question.

Therefore, the key to Taiwan's participation to the international health group rests on itself. The Taiwan authorities has to recognize the one-China principle and change their policy toward the mainland should they hope to regain its WHA observer status again.

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