After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was inaugurated on May 20, the general feeling was that China’s attitude toward Taiwan’s participation in the WHO would be a benchmark for the improvement of cross-strait relations — especially in regard to Taipei’s bid for observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO’s main governing body.
Several days ago, the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Wang Yi (王毅), said that China remained opposed to Taiwan’s entry into the WHO, but would seek certain “legal frameworks” outside the WHO to assist in the transfer of health and disease data.
Let’s put aside what constitutes a “legal framework” outside the WHO, because China in 2005 had one such framework within the body that was specifically designed for Taiwan. In May that year, China signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the WHO secretariat on Taiwan’s status.
Although the contents of the MOU have not been made public as required by international convention, subsequent events suggest that it contains at least the following stipulations:
First, contact between Taiwan and the WHO cannot give the impression that Taiwan and China are separate countries. If experts are to be sent to Taiwan, agreement must be obtained from Beijing prior to departure. If the WHO has important information to deliver, it must also first pass it to China. As for Taiwanese specialists who wish to attend conferences, in addition to applications to the WHO, they require the permission of Beijing authorities. If these specialists attend, Chinese government officials or specialists must also be present, while their place of origin must be stated as “Taiwan, China.”
The MOU has made Taiwan’s dealings with the WHO more difficult. For instance, the process for attending conferences and assessing qualifications takes at least five weeks; applications by Taiwanese specialists are therefore frequently unsuccessful.
Between 2005 and last year, the WHO held around 1,000 conferences on infectious diseases. However, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control were only notified of 40 of these events. Even worse, of these 40, Taiwanese specialists were only permitted to attend nine.
In the past year, the WHO sent out 236 health-related messages, but only 16 of those were relayed to Taiwan by China. And of these, many were so late that information had already begun appearing in the international media before they arrived.
During the WHO’s January executive board meeting and during the WHA meeting in May, three years after the MOU was signed, Chinese officials proudly claimed that the health needs of the Taiwanese people were being met through the extremely partial and incomplete communications conducted under the MOU. Further, the officials cited Taiwanese donations after the Sichuan earthquake as proof of cross-strait health exchanges and boasted of solving the problem of Taiwan’s participation in the WHO. They then criticized Taiwan’s application for entry into the WHO as strategizing and seeking “political ends.”
If we look at Wang’s language, as well as that in the recent meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), we can discern a difference between China’s attitude toward Taiwan’s entry into the WHO domestically and internationally.
Internationally, China promotes the benefits “felt” by Taiwanese through the MOU, but for those Taiwanese who have not “felt” these “benefits,” China promises to “continue considering” expanding Taiwan’s participation. In the end, all that Taiwan gets is a firm refusal and restrictions based on a “legal framework.” The imperatives of health and human rights ultimately lose out to fulfilling China’s “political ends.”
Joining the WHO has long been a consensus issue in Taiwan. Naturally, Taiwanese support the government in its efforts to come up with new solutions, even if there are differences of opinion on some points, such as the nation’s title. Ultimately, however, there is a common goal of having Taiwan fully and officially participate in the WHO in accordance with the nation’s needs.
Yet the situation has developed in a different direction. Will the new government continue to rely entirely on the “goodwill” of China on this crucial question? Will it allow China to hold Taiwan hostage through the use of various “legal frameworks” and offer more platitudes to the effect of a China in which “each side has its own interpretation”? These actions provide nothing for Taiwan’s campaign to participate in world health issues.
In the current international climate, believing that WHO entry can be separated from cross-strait maneuvering is naive. Even so, continuing to foster support in the international community and using this support as a bargaining chip when negotiating with China remains the most beneficial course.
Lin Shih-chia is executive director of the Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan.
TRANSLATED BY ANGELA HONG
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