By Sarah Wu and Yimou Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) -&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;said it still hoped to be invited to the World Health Organization's annual assembly opening in Geneva on Sunday, as&nbsp;support&nbsp;for its participation was growing despite China's efforts to isolate the democratically governed island.
Foreign Minister Joseph Wu noted several diplomatic allies and friendly countries had issued statements of&nbsp;support&nbsp;for&nbsp;Taiwan's participation, or arranged bilateral&nbsp;meetings on the sidelines of the&nbsp;WHO&nbsp;assembly, set to run from May 21-30.
"Support&nbsp;for us is stronger than in the past," Wu told a news conference in Taipei on Thursday.
"Even though we still haven't received an&nbsp;invitation&nbsp;letter for the assembly this year, we haven't given up and continue to through various channels clearly express our demand to the&nbsp;WHO."
Taiwan&nbsp;is excluded from most international organizations due to objections by China, which considers the island its own despite&nbsp;Taiwan's claims that it is an independent country.
After China began blocking&nbsp;Taiwan's World Health Assembly (WHA) participation in 2017, the island started a diplomatic campaign to join the annual&nbsp;meeting&nbsp;as an observer.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement encouraging the&nbsp;WHO&nbsp;to invite&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;as an observer, drawing criticism from China.
On Thursday the de facto embassies in&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;for the United States, Australia, the UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic issued a joint statement reaffirming&nbsp;support&nbsp;for&nbsp;Taiwan&rsquo;s participation in the WHA as an observer.
"Taiwan&rsquo;s isolation from the WHA, the preeminent global health forum, is unjustified and undermines inclusive global public health cooperation and security," the statement said.&nbsp;
Taiwan, which is allowed to attend some technical&nbsp;WHO&nbsp;meetings, says its exclusion from the&nbsp;WHO&nbsp;hindered efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
China has in recent years ramped up diplomatic and military pressure against&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;to force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty.&nbsp;Taiwan's government rejects China's claims and says only the island's 23 million people can decide their future.
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(Reporting By Sarah Wu and Yimou Lee; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Hoping for invitation to WHO meeting, Taiwan gathers more support