If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, yes, it does make a sound. By the same token, a secret deal struck between two parties without other parties or the public being informed can have a very real impact. And if a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is signed between Beijing and the WHO without Taiwan being consulted, it very clearly exists.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) statement on Monday to the contrary was, to put it bluntly, dumbfounding.
China’s “secret” MOU with the WHO is hardly secret — and both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Health have no problem acknowledging the existence of this document, which reportedly stipulates that communication between the WHO and Taiwan can only take place with Beijing’s consent.
After Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said earlier this month that the Presidential Office was unsure whether the MOU existed, Ma made similar remarks on Monday, questioning the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration’s claim that an MOU was signed.
“We are uncertain whether China signed an MOU with the WHO ... but because [the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] was not in power at the time, we have no way of finding out,” Ma said in an interview with Taiwan’s China Television.
In light of past statements by officials in his administration, including Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrew Hsia (夏立言), Ma was setting himself up for trouble. Given their open and unambiguous discussion of the MOU, the president must have had a clear motive for an about-face that could only make him look disingenuous.
It seems unlikely that Ma or any other top figure in the KMT would doubt the MOU’s existence. In 2005, then-director of the KMT’s Mainland Affairs Department Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) was quoted by several media outlets, including the Central News Agency, as saying that he had been informed of the MOU’s contents by Taiwan-related agencies in China. The MOU took effect on May 14, 2005, Chang told the media.
But the evidence doesn’t stop there. Although the MOU has never formally been made public, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) mentioned the document in an interview with China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.
“On Taiwan’s participation in the WHO’s technical activities, Chan said the WHO would deal with the issue in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with China,” Xinhua reported on Nov. 27, 2006. “The MoU on Taiwan health and medical experts’ participation in WHO technical activities was signed between the Chinese Ministry of Health and the WHO Secretariat in 2005.”
“Facts show that the memorandum has played a positive role,” said Chan, then newly elected as the world health body’s director-general.
No one, it would seem, is denying the existence of the MOU except the Presidential Office. The goal, it seems, is to convince the public that Taiwan’s admittance to the World Health Assembly as an observer this year was not achieved through Beijing, as would be required by the MOU.
But traces of the MOU are everywhere. The question is what the president stands to gain from squandering his credibility.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS