An atypical pneumonia outbreak has been spreading with alarming speed across the world. So far more than 150 cases have been reported in Asia, America and Europe and at least nine deaths have been attributed to the outbreak. WHO officials yesterday called the mystery pneumonia that appeared in China "a new communicable disease" but said there was still no link to cases in other countries. However, the global alert issued by the WHO lists China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand as affected areas.
Taiwan is not on the list, but at least three cases have been discovered here -- and reported to the WHO. Political factors mean that Taiwan has "disappeared" from the global epidemic prevention system. Such action is not only unfair, it is downright dangerous in that it may keep people visiting or transiting this nation in the dark about the situation here.
Taiwan is not a member of the WHO -- owing to Beijing's blacklisting -- and is therefore excluded from the WHO's daily and emergency operations. Back in 1998, 80 people died during an outbreak of an enterovirus here. The WHO did not respond to Taipei's calls for help although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USCDC) stepped in and provided some assistance.
By excluding Taiwan for political reasons, the WHO has not only violated the rights of 23 million Taiwanese to medical service, it has also created a blind spot in the global health and disease prevention network -- a rather serious matter in this era, in which what happens in any part of the world is having an increasingly bigger impact on the rest.
With the pneumonia outbreak, the WHO has been quick to ask the USCDC to help Taiwan. The WHO has apparently improved the way it handles Taipei, but discrimination still remains. And discrimination contravenes the WHO's mission. The right to medical service transcends national boundaries and political battle lines. The US House of Representatives and the European Parliament have both passed resolutions supporting this nation's's participation in the WHO.
The government has been working hard in recent years to push a WHO-membership bid but to no avail, thanks to Beijing. The atypical pneumonia outbreak appears to have started last November in Guangdong Province and gradually spread to Hong Kong and then elsewhere. In the cases that have been reportedly locally, the people apparently came in contact with the virus in China.
A thriving trade in smuggled livestock from across the Taiwan Strait means that large numbers of animals raised in China enter Taiwan without undergoing proper health checks. Foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks originating from China have already caused massive losses to the nation's livestock industry.
The impression that vicious Chinese diseases are flowing into this country at a time when Taiwanese capital is pouring into the other side has resulted in negative public perceptions about China. The Department of Health has already advised the public not to visit China and Hong Kong. The number of Taiwanese heading to those places is already falling, but people who work or run businesses there have no choice but to go.
A Beijing leader who has any insight and generosity will stop interfering in Taipei's efforts to participate in the WHO because this will certainly improve China's bad image here. Taiwan's participation in the WHO should not have anything to do with politics. It could only improve people's welfare on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. If Beijing stubbornly continues to block Taiwan's path into the WHO, then more and more Taiwanese will keep China out of their hearts.
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A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
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