Taiwan Gears Up for New WHO Bid
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Taiwan is preparing its ninth consecutive annual bid to join the World Health Organization, but despite recent hints at concessions from China, there appears to be little chance that it will drop its longstanding opposition to the move.The WHO begins its annual World Health Assembly in Geneva next Monday, and President Chen Shui-bian's government will have a delegation there to promote its application. Ministers were dispatched Thursday to lobby in Japan and Europe.
"This will be the best opportunity to examine whether China will match its words with actions or whether it will cheat the international community with more sweet words," Foreign Minister Chen Tan-sun said this week.
Beijing regards its dispute with the self-governed island as a domestic issue, and lobbies hard to undercut attempts by Taiwan to gain recognition in the international community.
Earlier this month, the leader of Taiwan's opposition Nationalist (KMT) party, Lien Chan, paid a historic visit to the mainland at Beijing's invitation.
While there, Lien and his Communist Party hosts issued a joint statement, in which they agreed to urge discussions to help Taiwan "participate in international activities."
Among several concessions held out to Lien was the possibility of China supporting Taiwanese participation at the WHO.
Although Lien's visit was widely seen as an attempt by China to stoke political divisions in Taiwan and marginalize its pro-independence leader, Taipei plans to make the WHO issue a test of Beijing's goodwill - and is not optimistic.
Chen, the foreign minister, said at a press conference on the WHO bid that Chinese officials' remarks on the issue "have either been vague or merely reiterations of the same old rigid stance."
He said Beijing had not stopped obstructing Taiwan's participation in WHO-related activities either.
"Just one week ago, when six Taiwanese medical experts traveled to Phuket, Thailand, to participate in a WHO conference on health in the areas struck by the South Asian tsunamis, they were ruthlessly suppressed by China," Chen said.
Beijing has also sought to block applications by Taiwanese journalists who want to cover the WHO assembly in Geneva, he added.
Prof. Bruce Jacobs, a China and Taiwan expert at Monash University in Melbourne, said Taiwan's latest bid was likely to fail.
He said China's references to Taiwan's participation at the WHO during Lien's visit had to be seen in the context of the effort to win KMT support for the "one China" policy.
"The whole thing was prefaced on the fact that Lien Chan had agreed that there's only one China and [that] he opposed Taiwanese independence. That was what the Chinese wanted. So everything agreed to was on the assumption that that point had been accepted."
Jacobs said Beijing was only ready to let Taiwan into the WHO "as part of China, but the Taiwanese aren't ready to do that, so I don't think that was any [Chinese policy] change at all."
'Disease transcends borders'
The WHO issue is highly sensitive for the island, which rejects China's claim that the health needs of 23 million Taiwanese are adequately covered by WHO's "country office" in Beijing.
Taiwan says its exclusion from the WHO has cost Taiwanese lives during outbreaks of diseases such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus in 2003 -- when 73 Taiwanese died -- and an enterovirus epidemic in 1998.
But Beijing maintains that WHO membership is open only to U.N. member states. Taiwan lost its U.N. seat to China in 1971, and apart from a handful of diplomatic allies is not recognized as a sovereign nation by the international community.
Its unique political situation has prompted Taiwan to try the alternative option of applying for observer status, but China opposes that too - despite the fact non-state entities such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Order of Malta charity have enjoyed that status at the WHO.
This year, Taiwan will again attempt to obtain observer status as a "health entity."
As part of the campaign, Taiwan will broadcast 30-second clips in international media focusing on the issues of medical relief, humanitarian care, and the fact that diseases transcend borders.
After last year's World Health Assembly saw Taiwan's eighth bid fail - member states voted 133-25 to reject even holding a debate on the issue - President Bush signed legislation designed to help Taiwan's future attempts.
The legislation requires the Secretary of State to report to Congress each year on the efforts made by the administration since the last WHO gathering to encourage other member states to promote Taiwan's bid.
The report is also to detail the steps the Secretary of State plans to take at the next assembly meeting.
Last year a WHO spokeswoman confirmed that there was no legal reason why the agency could not invite Taiwan as an observer without having to go through debates and voting.
"There has been a long-standing practice whereby the [WHO] director-general has in his discretion extended an invitation to certain entities to attend the Health Assembly as an observer," Fadela Chaib said.
She said the director-general, Lee Jong-Wook, had "so far" only exercised that discretion in cases of "entities having a status in international law and whose attendance was not controversial."
Although the PLO's attendance is arguably controversial, it has enjoyed observer status as the result of a specific World Health Assembly resolution, passed in 1974, which asked the director-general to invite "national liberation movements" recognized by the Arab League and the former Organization of Africa Unity.
See earlier story:
No Legal Reason Why UN Health Body Can't Invite Taiwan as Observer (Aug. 26, 2004)
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