According to a newspaper report on June 3, Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘), the son-in-law of Presi-dent Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), referred to SARS as "Chinese pneumonia." This prompted PFP Legislator Yang Fu-mei (楊富美) and KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) to question the appropriateness of the term.
The answer from Department of Health Director-General Chen Chien-jen (
Chao was not the first person to call SARS "Chinese pneumonia." DPP Legislator Trong Chai (
There is a historical precedent for calling contagious diseases and vectors by their place of origin. Some examples are the "Spanish flu" of 1918, Japanese encephalitis, and the German cockroach. As recently as 1997, a flu outbreak was called "Type A Hong Kong flu."
The Department of Health wants to use SARS as the official name of the disease.
In fact, SARS began to surface in November last year but the World Health Organization (WHO) coined the name much later. It was initially called "atypical pneumonia" in China.
But what then is "typical"? Is it caused by a bacteria or a virus? That name was an evasive name. Did we really have to use a name coined by China and avoid using "Chinese pneumonia" even before the WHO coined the name "SARS"?
It's been seven months since the epidemic broke out in China. Beijing has either covered up the epidemic or downplayed the situation, thereby causing harm to Taiwan and the rest of the world.
Foreign commentators believe China's deliberate cover-up is a case of negligence and even a criminal act. By sending out infected patients, China is releasing walking biological weapons.
Beijing is now poisoning Taiwan, and everyone from this country is in harm's way, whether he is pro-independence or pro-unification -- we are all "from Taiwan" in China's eyes.
The SARS war facing Taiwan is what China calls "a war of non-military violence." This kind of war will continue for a while under the cover of the direct links and illegal immigrants. Some people in Taiwan are trying to defend China, but they are also losing face now for doing that.
Cheng Ching-jen is a professor emeritus of the history department of National Taiwan University. Translated by Francis whang
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
Taiwan ranks second globally in terms of share of population with a higher-education degree, with about 60 percent of Taiwanese holding a post-secondary or graduate degree, a survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed. The findings are consistent with Ministry of the Interior data, which showed that as of the end of last year, 10.602 million Taiwanese had completed post-secondary education or higher. Among them, the number of women with graduate degrees was 786,000, an increase of 48.1 percent over the past decade and a faster rate of growth than among men. A highly educated population brings clear advantages.
RSS