[health-vn] Taiwan, China, and the WHO

[Vern Weitzel]

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/05/07/taiwan-china-and-the-who/


Taiwan, China, and the WHO


Author: Stuart Harris

Taiwan has been invited by the WHO to attend the annual meeting of the World 
Health Assembly, its top decision making body, as an observer. Observers are 
able to participate in all activities along with members but have no voting rights.

Taiwan has been granted observer status at the WHO, but much now depends on 
cross strait relations

This will be seen generally as an important step forward both as a contribution 
to the health of Taiwan’s population and as a step towards greater international 
participation. It reflects a degree of pragmatism by the Chinese authorities who 
have blocked 12 previous attempts by Taiwan to participate and it is, of course, 
a response to the widespread criticism China received internationally and within 
the region for blocking Taiwan’s attendance when the SARS epidemic was active.

It undoubtedly also reflects recognition that the cross-border transmission of 
diseases like swine flu could harm China.

Taiwan will attend under the name Chinese Taipei, as it does in the WTO and APEC 
and other bodies such as the Olympics. As President Ma has said, it will not 
alter Taiwan’s sovereignty status. Chinese Taipei has largely ceased to be a 
controversial title, finessed by the PRC and Taiwan by using different Chinese 
translations for the term Chinese; that used by Taiwan has a cultural or ethnic 
meaning, not a political one, as the mainland’s term has. It is a clear step 
forward by China from earlier suggestions of Taiwan’s international 
participation in international events as part of a Chinese delegation.

This will be seen by President Ma as a positive product of his efforts to ease 
cross strait relations and the warmer, if still limited, relations that have 
developed between the two governments. This development has been welcomed 
internationally, including by the US, but whether it will lead to further 
participation by Taiwan in international bodies (including the UN) or indeed 
could be seen as foreshadowing regular Taiwanese participation remains to be seen.

The case for participation in a basically technical meeting on health issues 
gives WHO participation a special logic, but much will depend on how the 
experience plays out and on how cross strait relations develop.

One interesting twist, noted by DPP critics in Taiwan, is that it seems that the 
first public announcement of the decision was made by China’s Health Ministry.
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