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| WHO
2003 Campaign
Op-Ed
in Washington Post
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Shutting Out Taiwan
Washington Post, Tuesday, May 20,
2003; Page A18
WITHIN DAYS of an
outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Singapore,
the World Health Organization sent experts to help the Singaporean
government deal with the disease. After SARS appeared in Taiwan,
however, more than six weeks passed before the WHO sent two experts
to Taipei. Worse, Taiwanese doctors have had difficulty gaining
access to information about the disease, and Taiwanese data have not
been published as rapidly as data from other countries. These
differences reflect the fact that Taiwanese statehood, according to
a surreal but long-standing international tradition, is not
recognized by the United Nations or almost anyone else. For many
years now, Taiwan has tried to persuade the WHO to at least grant it
the same observer status the organization gives to the Vatican, the
Palestinian Authority and the Order of Malta. Yesterday it failed
once again, when the WHO decided not to consider a motion to allow
Taiwan to attend the organization's annual general meeting in Geneva
as an observer. Although the United States supports a change in
Taiwan's status, American diplomacy failed once again to persuade
enough others to agree.
The explanation is
straightforward: China -- which spends an inordinate amount of time
and effort trying to prevent Taiwan from ever being recognized for
any reason at all. On this page today, we publish a letter from an
official at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, arguing that Taiwan
is merely using the SARS epidemic as a tool to gain WHO observer
status and acknowledgment of its de facto independence. But the
opposite is equally true: For years, China has used its political
power in the United Nations system as a tool to prevent Taiwan from
gaining access to the technical expertise of the WHO. In an era when
diseases such as SARS travel quickly across borders, this is no
longer
acceptable.
Like many others, we
have had cause in recent weeks to praise the WHO for its
transformation over the past few years from one of the most poorly
run U.N. agencies into the more effective institution it has become
under its current leader, Gro Harlem Brundtland. The WHO has been
widely commended for its rapid reaction to the outbreak of SARS. But
continued reform of the organization, like reform of other U.N.
agencies, does not merely consist of making the bureaucracy more
efficient. For the U.N. system to be taken seriously, it also has to
junk some of the political baggage it has acquired over the years.
The WHO needs to recognize that China's musty objection to Taiwanese
independence is no longer a good reason to deny Taiwan the help it
needs to combat the health problems of the future.
2003 The Washington Post
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