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
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