Editorial: Kao represents Beijing, not Taiwan

Nobody could accuse PFP Legislator Kao Ming-chien (高明見) of inconsistency. For weeks he has been doing everything he can to aid and abet China in its attempt to use the SARS crisis to underline its territorial claims to Taiwan. His latest action -- taking part in the international SARS conference in Kuala Lumpur as a delegate for China -- is no exception.

Taiwan has, of course, been struggling to participate in this conference organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and little wonder, given that the nation is the third hardest-hit by the virus. All along China has put obstacles in Taiwan's way which might well have cost Taiwanese lives.

China's own behavior as the originator of the SARS virus, which it tried so hard to cover up, has earned it international opprobrium. But its behavior toward Taiwan should cause an international outcry. It has, at the same time, both blocked Taiwan's access to WHO aid and expertise, while claiming that, as the legitimate sovereign of Taiwan -- a claim it bases on the craven acceptance by most of the world's governments of its "one China" blackmail -- it has the responsibility for looking after Taiwan's health, and has discharged this responsibility well.

Kao has played a key part in Beijing's attempt to sustain this absurdity, holding two video conferences with Chinese SARS experts last month, so that his real constituency -- namely Zhongnanhai -- can use these events to back up its outrageous claims. Now this Chinese agent, who sits as a representative of the Taiwanese people but, as an at-large legislator, has not actually had a single vote cast for him in Taiwan, is busy again in Kuala Lumpur trying to belittle this country and weaken its international position.

Center for Disease Control Director-General Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁) said yesterday that Taiwan's participation in the conference was a red-letter day, marking the first time that it had been allowed to participate in a WHO-arranged function for 30 years. Su was talking up a rather weak hand. After all, why was it that of the five countries and one region asked to present reports on their SARS experiences on the confer-ence's first day, Taiwan, which has more experience of the disease than at least half of those making reports, was absent? Taiwan was not given the status of a SARS-hit country or even territory at the conference, but merely a place from which there were some people who knew something about SARS.

We cannot but help feel that with SARS under control here, the WHO needs Taiwan now far more than Taiwan needs the WHO. In the early days of the outbreak, when pooled expertise was important, the global body did everything it could not to provide this information to Taipei for purely political reasons. Now the WHO wants to show that it is on top of SARS, it is the WHO's need for information that is greater than Taiwan's need for help. If it needs this information it should, as our mothers told it, have to ask nicely. Why should Taiwan give its knowledge away to a body that won't even address it by name.

In this light it is about time that people who care about this country's stature -- which, of course excludes the pan-blue camp and about 80 percent of the media -- stopped indulging the government in its spinelessness, stopped suggesting that any nod from exclusive clubs of "sovereign nations" to the Taiwanese begger at their door was worth having. It would have been better for Taiwan not to send an official delegation at all. That would have made Kao's status as an agent of China all the more obvious. As for what to do with Kao himself, let Taiwanese patriots take off the kid gloves and show that Beijing dupes like him are no longer welcome in the legislature or, in fact, in this nation.