TAIPEI, May 16 (AP) -- Taiwan on Tuesday announced a renewed bid to win observer status at the World Health Organization despite China's strong opposition to its participation in the U.N. agency.

Health Minister Hou Sheng-mou will lead a delegation to Geneva to lobby support for the Taiwanese cause when the World Health Assembly holds its annual meeting later this month.

It will be Taiwan's 10th bid for observer status. All previous attempts were blocked by China, which resists giving the self-governing island the trappings of sovereignty.

The two split amid civil war in 1949 and China still views it as a breakaway province.

Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Hou urged WHO members to "put political concerns aside" and support "a humanitarian, just, compassionate, and correct" move that would allow Taiwan access to international health forums under U.N. auspices.

"This is an opportunity for Taiwan to make a genuine contribution to the international community ... and to the global disease prevention network," he said.

Hou said Taiwan has set up a task force to integrate governmental and private resources and send medical missions to countries in need.

For example, he said, it sent a mission to Burkina Faso last month to help the African nation control an outbreak of bird flu, and dispatched another mission to the Philippines to prevent disease outbreaks following a massive landslide in February.

For the past few years, Taiwan has applied for observer status at WHO as a "health entity" instead of a country. It argues that a WHO link could help it battle diseases such as the outbreak three years ago of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and the instances of bird flu that have recently ravaged Asia.