Senior WHO officials sent out an internal memo on Sept. 14 last year asking WHO agencies to be kept aware that Taiwan is a “Province of China,” pursuant to an arrangement with Beijing.

The confidential memo, released by a lawmaker yesterday and published by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) the same day, says that procedures used by the WHO to facilitate relations with Taiwan and how these relations operate were subject to Chinese — and not Taiwanese — approval.

The authenticity of the document has been confirmed with the WHO, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland.