India expects Taiwan’s presence at WHO Geneva meet: Ex-diplomat T P Sreenivasan

India is hoping for China’s consent to Taiwan’s participation in the WHO meet on Covid pandemic to be held at Geneva over two days starting Monday, former diplomat T.P. Sreenivasan said on Sunday.

TP Sreenivasan was addressing a webinar titled ”Emergence of Taiwan issue and its implications for India,” organised by think-tank Centre for Policy and Development Studies, along with weekly, the Organiser.

“India has done extremely well in containing the Covid pandemic,” he said, adding that there were reports and suggestions by several world leaders for India to take the lead of a post Covid world.

“The world expected that Chinese premier would take drastic decisions after being blamed for Wuhan Covid spread. The United States will put pressure on China for a thorough investigation on the start of the Covid crisis,” added the seasoned diplomat who was the permanent representative of India to the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna.

At the seminar, Shri Prafulla Ketkar, an expert on China and Editor of Organiser, said, “How Taiwan has emerged as a ‘side-effect’ of this entire Covid-19 crisis and what can be the possible implications for the future world order from the Indian perspective, are the critical issue we need to ponder upon.”

“Taiwan is getting recognised more in the world as the country has successfully tackled the pandemic through democratic means,” Shri Ketkar said, adding that they should be participating in the WHO meet to share their expertise in containing Covid, he added.