On Sunday, the WHO secretariat issued a statement saying: “The question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO member states, not WHO staff.”
The statement also mentioned that the WHO has been working closely with Taiwan on the COVID-19 pandemic through the establishment of the Taiwanese International Health Regulations Point of Contact, the Taiwanese Field Epidemiology Training Program and the participation of two Taiwanese public healthcare experts in the Global Research and Innovation Forum, organized by the global body in February.
According to the WHO’s constitution, the secretariat indeed has no right to decide the membership of any country, but as the WHO is the leader of global health, it has a responsibility to take a neutral and professional stance toward Tawain to facilitate its full participation in the world body.
The statement is encouraging in that the WHO distinguishes between Taiwan and China, as Taiwanese membership has nothing to do with Chinese membership.
As UN Resolution 2758 and Resolution WHA25.1 state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only legal government of China, but they do not claim that Taiwan should be represented by the PRC under the UN system.
Although the WHO secretariat is not entitled to make decisions on Taiwanese membership, it does have a responsibility to provide an opportunity for a fair discussion of this issue.
In the the case of East Germany in 1968, West Germany, who was already a WHO member, used the Hallstein Doctrine to ensure that it had the exclusive right to represent the entire German nation.
Consequently, when then-WHO director-general Marcolino Gomes Candau received a membership application from East Germany, he took two actions: First, he put the application on the World Health Assembly’s (WHA) agenda for discussion with the WHO constitution and related rules of procedure as a reference for all member states.
Second, he wrote an open letter emphasizing that East Germany’s membership should be decided by the WHA, not the WHO secretariat.
Unfortunately, his successors have never treated Taiwan’s case in the same way.
The secretariat’s statement indicated that even though it cannot decide Taiwanese membership, it can still cooperate with Taiwan in other areas.
However, the WHO’s slow actions — the establishment of the point of contact and the training program, and the participation of the Taiwanese public healthcare experts in the forum — cannot meet Taiwan’s urgent demand amid the pandemic and is not helpful in instantly sharing Taiwan’s experiences with other countries.
That is, the information and resources to combat the pandemic — which Taiwan needs and where it can contribute its knowledge and expertise — cannot be facilitated thorough these modes of cooperation.
To tackle the pandemic, the WHO has convened several working groups responsible for epidemiological modeling, vaccinations, reagent development, and assisting low and middle-income countries in their pandemic response strategies among others.
However, Taiwanese healthcare experts have never been invited to any of these group or projects by the secretariat.
Moreover, the WHO director-general has never interfered with Beijing’s efforts to further its “one China” propaganda, choosing instead to ignore Taiwanese existence and rights, and sacrificing professionalism and morality to pander to China.
As the saying goes: “Give them an inch and they will take a mile.” China has been allowed to tell lies for a long time, and it is going further to cover up the real development of the coronavirus — which might be the root cause of why the pandemic has become uncontrollable.
The outbreak highlights a crisis in WHO governance and had forced the global body to issue a quite rare statement regarding Taiwanese membership.
Apart from this, more thought-provoking news came out on the same day. In an interview with the Japan Business Press, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Kong Xuanyou (孔鉉佑) revealed that China is planning to accept Taiwan as a regular WHO observer.
This interview raises some questions.
First, why did the Chinese envoy to Japan reveal this plan to the press and, second, if China is really planning to accept Taiwan as a regular observer, Taiwanese have be wary of whether the nation can only be an observer if China agrees.
If China’s approval is required, then Taiwan would be repeating the mistake made by the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which was blackmailed by China each year over whether Taiwan would be invited to the WHA.
Given the current situation, Taiwan should strive for WHO membership directly, as the nation’s medical service is ranked No. 3 in the world, and its disease prevention polices have attracted the attention of the world and have been emulated by several countries.
Taiwan should assist other countries as a WHO member state to help defend the health of humankind.
Lin Shih-chia is executive director of the Medical Professionals’ Alliance in Taiwan and a former legislator.
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