Taiwan faces possible Beijing squeeze after US quits WHO and other agencies

While Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te’s government has sought to play down the impact, observers have warned that Washington’s retreat could further squeeze the island’s already narrow international space.

These included the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – bodies in which Taiwan has long sought observer status or some form of participation.

Before the latest order, Trump had already directed the US to withdraw from UN heritage body Unesco in July and from the World Health Organization in January last year.

The WHO is one of the UN agencies that Taiwan has most actively sought to rejoin

, lobbying particularly for observer status at the World Health Assembly, the organisation’s highest decision-making body.