Longstanding foreign and local campaigners for Taiwan's WHO bid yesterday brainstormed ways to further the effort, with some urging Taiwan to enhance lobbies elsewhere other than the US.
Dubbing Taiwan's WHO bid as a "human rights issue," Sherrod Brown, a member of the US House of Representatives, said efforts on Capitol Hill have yet to convince the US administration.
"We have been successful in showing that Taiwan's inclusion is important ... because Taiwan has so much to offer to the world community in terms of scientific research, medical knowledge and good health care systems," Brown said.
"But we haven't come close in terms of convincing the administration of the importance of this," he said, adding that the current US president and his last two predecessors "see China-Taiwan policy as all about corporate interests, not about human rights."
Brown said that, if the US thought that getting closer to Taiwan might damage commercial interests in China, it would invariably back off.
Brown suggested that while the US Congress and Taiwanese lobby groups in the US should continue their efforts, the Taiwanese government should make the WHO bid a higher priority and invest resources in other parts of the world.
"The Taiwanese government should turn up the heat with its European allies and friendships that it has established using the Taiwanese community in European countries, using diplomatic channels in countries in Europe to convince them," he said.
Coen Blaauw, Executive Director of the Formosan Association for Public Relations, a Washington-based lobby group, echoed Brown's view.
"If Taiwan doesn't get support from other countries, the US will say one day it's tired of going it alone," said Blaauw.
Blaauw said he believed the first phase of related work in Washington has "reached it ceiling," urging Taiwan to enhance what he termed sincerity and creativity in pushing for the bid.
"I am optimistic about Taiwan's chance to join WHO, but I am pessimistic about what we've done," Blaauw said.
Brown said the support of other countries plus the unanimous support for Taiwan's WHO bid from the US Congress would "likely move" President George W. Bush to take concrete actions in realizing Taiwan's bid.
DPP Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) offered what he dubbed a realistic approach to Taiwan's WHO bid
"Although we have emphasized so much that it's a human rights issue, obviously for China and its allies, it's a 100 percent political issue," Shen said.
"President Bush should go to China first and convince them this is really is a human rights issue. Otherwise China will conclude that this is just the first initial step toward full membership of other international organizations, even full membership of the UN," Shen said.
Wu Shuh-min (吳樹民), executive director of the Foundation of the Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) active in Taiwan's WHO bid in recent years, said: "The way China has handled our bid in the World Health Assembly has been cruel. ... But two years ago when some countries voiced their support for Taiwan's WHO bid, they received wide applause. So at least we've got some international attention."
Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳), director-general of the foreign ministry's department of international organizations, said Taiwan's diplomats in various capitals have intensified related lobbying efforts.
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