The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday urged China not to belittle Taiwan's status in the international community under the pretext of working to halt the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
"While we are more than happy to share with China our prevention experience against SARS, we however do not welcome any political gestures by Chinese officials to suppress Taiwan's status in the name of exchanging measures against SARS," council Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tong (
Chen made the remarks in response to a question about the recent willingness expressed by Chinese authorities to cooperate with Taiwan on cross-strait anti-SARS measures.
According to a report in Hong Kong's Mingpao daily, Chinese President Hu Jintao (
The ministry's departments should meet up with experts or academics from Hong Kong and Taiwan, if necessary, to look into measures on how to contain and curb SARS, the newspaper quoted Hu as saying.
"Taiwan's SARS cases were transmitted from China. It is by Taiwan's own effort that Taiwan has been recognized worldwide for its achievements in SARS prevention and treatment," Chen said.
He noted that so far the nation has maintained a "zero deaths, zero transmissions abroad and zero community transmissions" record with respect to SARS.
Chen said that it was through help from sources such as the World Health Organization, the US government and Hong Kong that the government was able to obtain information about SARS.
Saying that the country is willing to share SARS-related information with China and cooperate on the issue via the Straits Exchange Foundation and its Beijing-counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, Chen complained that China was including Taiwan's SARS cases in its national SARS statistics.
"Taiwan is not a province under the People's Republic of China," Chen emphasized.
Meanwhile, Department of Health Deputy Director-General Lee Lung-teng (
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