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Congress
of the United States
Washington,
DC 20515
May
9, 2002
The
President
The
White House
Washington,
DC 20500
Dear
Mr. President:
We are
writing to express our disappointment with a recent report
issued by the State Department concerning Taiwan and the
World Health Organization (WHO).
As you
may recall, on April 4th, 2002, you signed into
law P.L. 107-158, which requires the Secretary of State
to provide Congress with a United States plan to
endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan. In
accordance with that law, the Secretary of State recently
submitted a report to the House Committee on International
Relations. To our great disappointment, that report contained
nothing more than an overview of the United States
historical position toward Taiwans membership into
the World Health Organization (WHO) and failed completely
to provide any United States plan of action to help Taiwan
achieve observer status.
Mr.
President, we are well aware of your strong commitment to
Taiwan. So we remain confident that this report does not
reflect a change in the United States long standing policy
of support t for Taiwans accession to the WHO. Nevertheless,
given the shortcomings of the report, we also believe that
the Administration needs to not only quickly and forcefully
restate its intention to endorse Taiwans membership
in the WHO, but also restate its intention too advocate
for this change with other WHO members.
It
is important to note that since the State Department completed
its recent report, Taiwanese officials have stated their
willingness to be classified as a public health
entity, a classification similar to the one Taiwan
used for other international organizations. This new classification
should make it substantially easier for the U.S. to undertake
an active effort on Taiwans behalf, and it provides
another obvious reason for this report to be rewritten in
a manner that spells out in clear terms a plan of action
going forward.
The
World Health Organization will convene its annual summit
in Geneva, Switzerland on May 13, 2002. It was the express
position of Congress that the United States should have
implemented a clear plan of action to obtain observer status
for Taiwan prior to this annual event. Without a clear plan,
we are concerned that the stated desire of the Congress,
and what we understand to be the position of your Administration,
will fail to be implemented. More importantly the world
will have missed another opportunity to have Taiwans
expertise, good will, and assistance put to work helping
to solve our global health problems.
We
trust the omissions in this recent report will be corrected
so that the United States can assist our long time friend
of Taiwan in joining this important organization. We look
forward to hearing from you on the Administrations
plan of action at the earliest possible date.
Sincerely,
Dan
Burton, Gary
L. Ackerman,Joe Crowley,Constance Morella, George Radanovich
Joel
Hefley, Joseph Hoeffel, Ellen Tauscher, Virgil Goode, Todd
Thiahrt, Peter Deutsch
Alcee
Hastings, Marcy Kaptur, Sam Johnson, Michael McNulty, Dana
Rohrabacher
Bob
Stump, Pete Sessions, Curt Weldon, Christopher Smith, Albert
Wynn, Chris Cox
Maurice
Hinchey, Bob Schaffer, Mark Souder, Mark Kirk, Jerry Costello,
Nita Lowey
Shelley
Berkley, Patrick Kennedy, Howard Berman, Eni Faleomavaega,
Silvestre Reyes
Solomon
Ortiz, David Wu, Gregory Meeks, John Linder, Tom Lantos,
Ken Calvert
Roy
Blunt, Adam Smith, Rob Andrews, Bob Barr,Mike Honda
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