On Monday last week, there was an interesting debate on interactions between Taiwan and the WHO in the pages of the Liberty Times (the sister publication of the Taipei Times) and on CNA News, between a Taiwanese health professional and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In his article, Peter Chang (張武修), a former advisor on international affairs to the Ministry of Health and former health attache in Geneva and Brussels, underlined the lack of action on the part of Taiwan’s government in protesting the WHO’s use of the name “Taiwan, province of China” as outlined in an internal document.
He also complained about the government’s ineffectiveness in securing opportunities for Taiwan’s medical community to participate in WHO events and technical meetings.
In response to these accusations, the ministry published a short article detailing its protests against the degradation of Taiwan’s sovereignty and the WHO events in which Taiwanese delegates have participated.
What was of particular interest in this exchange between a health professional and diplomat and government officials was the needs and concerns that it revealed.
The debate shed light on the urgent need for more information and transparency about the space offered to Taiwan by the WHO since it became a World Health Assembly (WHA) observer in May 2009. The question about the real level of participation by Taiwan in WHO events and meetings and concerns that such observership is just a seven-day ticket to the WHA are legitimate areas of public interest.
This should alert the government to the fact that it needs to share more information about Taiwan’s participation in WHO events and to detail what, if anything, concrete has been achieved by such participation.
Beyond the quantitative aspect of participation, there is also a qualitative element. This reaction also reveals the need for a better understanding of the benefits that the participation of Taiwanese delegates at WHO meetings provides in terms of helping to improve Taiwanese and global health. Have Taiwan’s delegates to these meetings proposed initiatives, exchanged ideas openly and tried to influence the debates?
If that is the case, then the government should be sharing this information with its citizens as well as the international community. It might be impossible to talk about work in progress for the next WHO meeting, but once Taiwan has participated in a WHO event, information should be shared.
This approach would help to avoid skepticism about Taiwan’s participation in the organization’s events.
In addition, the exchange also highlighted concerns about Taiwan’s sovereignty and once again a need for more transparency about the government’s efforts to protect it when working with the WHO or participating in its events. Progress on this issue, which is central in Taiwan’s politics, should be shared with Taiwanese on a frequent basis.
Moreover, the role of the memorandum of understanding signed between China and the WHO in 2005, which gave Beijing the right to control interactions between Taiwan and the international organization and thereby downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty, need to be publicly clarified.
Once again, if efforts have been made to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty while participating in WHO meetings, Taiwan should be proud of that and not be shy about sharing it. This would undoubtedly reduce criticism of the government and ultimately facilitate even greater support from civil society.
Vincent Rollet is an advisor to the Taiwan Health National Contact Point of the EU Framework Program on Research and Innovation.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry