The World Health Assembly (WHA) began yesterday and Taiwan was again excluded. What makes the nation’s marginalization even more infuriating is that nations worldwide are not meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, this year — they are meeting virtually through video conferencing, and the topic is the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taiwan has every reason to attend this year’s WHA, not as an observer as its friends have advocated, but as the leader of discussions. The reason is simple and it bears repeating: Taiwan has the world’s best COVID-19 response.
Forbes magazine on April 13 published an article which said that nations with female leaders have the best coronavirus responses, citing Taiwan, Germany, New Zealand, Iceland, Norway and Denmark as examples.
While the article stopped short of ranking the efficacy of the six nations’ responses, the answer is quite clear after comparing their proximity to China — where the novel coronavirus originated — and population density in relation to the number of confirmed cases and deaths.
However, even that is not reason enough for other nations to go out of their way to carve out a space for Taiwan’s international participation.
After all, the international community has already spoken up for Taiwan, with the US and seven other nations calling on the WHA to grant the nation observer status, and 106 European lawmakers urging the WHO to allow Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) to attend the WHA to share the nation’s measures to contain the virus.
There is no reason to expect others to stand up for Taiwan, unless they realize what they have to gain — or lose, if they make only half-hearted efforts or are complacent about the world order after the COVID-19 debacle.
What does the world have to gain from Taiwan? The technology it has used to curb the spread of COVID-19 and its development of vaccine candidates targeting the coronavirus, to name just two.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has pledged to offer other nations the same system powered by big data extracted from cellphone towers to track people who have come into contact with possible COVID-19 carriers. Meanwhile, Adimmune Corp has developed a vaccine candidate that is expected to enter clinical trials after it was proven to inhibit the growth of the novel coronavirus in preliminary animal tests.
Given the technicality of the issues and the tremendous help that Taiwan could offer the world in prevailing against the pandemic, it stands to reason that the nation deserves a proper platform and should be allowed floor time at the WHA.
Conversely, the world will have much to lose if nations are content with mere formalities such as “condemning” China and “demanding” that the WHO, which has unabashedly shielded China, comply with an investigation into the source of the outbreak. These efforts are so half-hearted and meek that they are unlikely to sit well with anyone whose life has been threatened by China.
The world already knows from statistics and chronicling the outbreak that the new coronavirus came from China. Drastic measures must be taken. The world will likely have put COVID-19 behind it and be preoccupied with other challenges before China is willing to divulge any information on the subject.
The world has much to gain from embracing Taiwan and everything to lose from capitulating to China. It is regrettable that Taiwan has again been sidelined at the WHA, but it would be even more tragic if the world continues to allow China to hold so much sway over it.
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