Should we continue to practice medicine and heal bodies if Taiwan participates in the WHO as part of China — at the risk of losing our identity as a Taiwanese nation?
Or should we fight to keep our soul as a nation and boycott the current administration’s move to incorporate Taiwan in the WHO as a province of China?
This is the critical dilemma we now face.
It is difficult. It is painful. How can we turn our backs on the Hippocratic Oath in order to salvage a heritage that gave us life, meaning and purpose?
For so long now, Taiwanese physicians have fought hard for Taiwan to be recognized as a sovereign nation by the WHO, but these efforts have failed.
But the WHO has recognized neither our status as a sovereign nation nor our sublime responsibility as physicians.
ARRANGEMENT
Yet recent developments have demonstrated that the pro-China administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) managed to broker an arrangement with WHO officials and the Chinese government that allows participation from Taiwan’s representatives only under the umbrella of China.
We are thus given the choice of healing bodies if we lose our Taiwanese souls.
Something is not right about this picture. Why must we succumb to such a sacrifice when we are perfectly able to practice the sublime act of healing while keeping our sovereignty and unalienable rights as Taiwanese?
We should first ask the Ma administration and the WHO’s policymakers about the rationale for Taiwan’s acceptance this year.
We should scrutinize not only the decision but also, and more importantly, the process that led to it.
We must ask that any deals cut by the Ma administration and China be revealed. We must request these parties to make it transparently clear what concessions were made in order to bring about acceptance by the WHO.
What price will we pay just to have been a participant at this year’s World Health Assembly?
VALUE
The most important implication is what follows from being recognized by the WHO as a province of China. What value can be attached to our participation and contributions if we are treated no differently than physician representatives from Hong Kong, Guangdong or Sichuan?
We should not settle for anything less. We should not allow anyone to blackmail us and strip away our identity.
Our profession is noble and sublime, but we are more than what we do.
Who we are and what we do are not the same. What good are our accomplishments if we cannot find meaning in who we are? “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:37)
We can still find fulfillment in healing patients even if we are outside the realm of the WHO. We can still affirm our value by believing in what we practice and practicing what we believe.
But what is the value of our existence if our spirit is broken and if our soul as a nation is not valued and accepted?
Acceptance by the WHO as a province of China and not as Taiwan does not constitute acceptance.
Let us therefore unite. Let us demand the truth. Let us expose and bring to light the inequality we suffer. Let us fight for Taiwan with all our body and soul.
Julin F. Tang is a professor in the School of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco.
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