Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s former foreign minister and current secretary-general of the National Security Council, said what Taiwan’s government has been saying for decades—this time in terms flat enough to require no translation.

#Taiwan has the best healthcare system in the world, but is excluded from the @WHO. This discrimination must end NOW. https://t.co/1bEI9byGHP

— Joseph Wu (@josephwutw) May 9, 2026

The claim about the healthcare system is not hyperbole. Numbeo’s 2026 index ranks Taiwan first globally. The Commonwealth Fund’s May 2026 country profile documents a National Health Insurance system covering over 99 percent of the population at an administrative overhead of two percent—the lowest in the world. Taiwan’s NHI, launched in 1995, was designed by drawing on more than ten foreign models and improving on each. Patient satisfaction has held above 90 percent across recent years. The system delivers universal coverage at roughly $2,522 per capita annually, a fraction of what comparable outcomes cost elsewhere.

At international travel expos, a country’s booth is a foreign policy instrument in miniature. Taiwan understands this. The “Taiwan — Waves of Wonder” pavilion, dressed in indigenous red geometric patterns, paper-cut horse sculptures, and sky lantern imagery, makes an argument without saying a word: this is a place with a distinct, layered identity that belongs to no one but itself.