US Senator Frank Murkowski is sending President George W. Bush a letter this week with the broad bipartisan support of other Senate lawmakers, urging the new administration to take appropriate steps to assist Taiwan in quickly gaining observer status at the World Health Organization.
The letter, drafted by an aide to Senator Murkowski, has been endorsed by more than 25 senior members of the Senate. Moderate Democrats like John Rockefeller IV, Joseph Lieberman, Max Baucus, Russell Feingold and Joseph Biden have also signed on to the plan.
Key players in the Republican majority, such as Senate leader Trent Lott, Craig Thomas, chairman of the Asia Pacific Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee, John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee and John Kyle have also demonstrated support for Taiwan's participation in the WHO.
Sources familiar with the letter say that the language contained within it is not ground-breaking in any way and that lawmakers on the Hill are just trying to focus the attention of the president on the issue while the administration's policy toward Taiwan is still being formulated.
Congressional aides said that the Bush administration, while no doubt well aware of the views of Republicans, should also realize that support for Taiwan's WHO participation is strong in both parties. The letter justified Taiwan's need for more international space and urges Bush to take appropriate steps to help Taiwan enter the WHO this year.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying before the House Budget Committee, told Representative Sherrod Brown last week that "there should be ways for Taiwan to enjoy the full benefits of participation without being a member." Powell cautioned, however, that he had to conduct a policy review before he took any concrete steps to assist Taiwan in its quest to participate in the WHO.
US officials say they have not reached any final decisions on what kind of action the new administration should take to assist Taiwan in this regard, but that it would be willing to help and will be more sensitive to the concerns and requests from Congress on the Taiwan issue.
Representative Brown introduced a bill last month requesting the US secretary of state initiate a plan to endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan at the annual week-long summit of the WHO assembly in Geneva, Switzerland this coming May.
This year, officials from Taiwan tried to persuade the Congress to endorse Taiwan as a full member in the WHO, but the idea lacked congressional support because it was thought that full membership would be too contradictory to US policy.
The bill introduced by Brown is yet to be marked up in the House International Relations Committee. People familiar with it believe that time is growing short, and all parties concerned were negotiating a resolution to get the bill passed soon.
Sources indicated that both Craig Thomas, chairman of Asia Pacific Subcommittee of the International Relations Committee and Henry Hyde, chairman of the International Relations Committee, might yield to the floor so that a quick vote could be taken. A similar bill could be introduced soon in the Senate.
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