Pro-Taiwan Message Written in Sky Over Sydney After Exclusion From WHO Meeting

A pro-Taiwan message was written in the sky above Sydney, Australia, on May 19, a day after the island state was excluded from joining a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taiwan withdrew a request to attend as an “observer” before the May 18 World Health Assembly meeting, claiming the decision had been made in order to allow other nations more time to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. It had previously held observer status between 2009 and 2016.

Australia, along with other nations including the United States, supported Taiwan’s continued observer status, while Beijing opposed the move as it considered Taiwan one of its provinces rather than an independent nation.

Taiwan had drawn praise for how it had handled the COVID-19 pandemic, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the head of the health body for the exclusion.

This video shows the message “Taiwan can help” scrawled in the sky over Sydney. The campaign was reportedly crowdfunded by a group of Taiwanese-Australian doctors and other professionals. The same message had been written above the Australian capital city of Canberra days earlier. Credit: Taiwan in Sydney via Storyful