Taiwan Deserves Support After Coronavirus Crisis

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph Journal

 

It seems that no good deed goes unpunished. While China prevaricated and covered up the truth about COVID-19, little Taiwan, kept out of the World Health Organization (WHO) by Beijing, began warning the world about the novel coronavirus early, and quickly took steps to combat it.

But has this helped Taiwan in the struggle to keep out of China’s orbit, or being allowed to join the WHO, whose director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, believed China’s initial lies? No -- but it did prevent the virus from ravaging its own people.

China has relentlessly pursued its objective of absorbing Taiwan, which it insists is part of the country. Since 1971, when China joined the United Nations and Taiwan was tossed out, China has worked tirelessly to isolate Taiwan diplomatically.

In recent decades the two have grown further apart. Taiwan has become a thriving democracy while China has increased its intolerance of free speech, thought, religion, and association. No wonder China has ratcheted up its political warfare and military threats against Taiwan.

China sends around 2,000 bomber patrols a year into the Taiwan Strait, which separates the two countries. In 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen, an opponent of reunification with China, was first elected Taiwan’s president, China began sending bombers to circumnavigate the island as a show of force. 

Last year it deliberately sent fighters across the mid-point of the Strait for the first time in two decades. In December China’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandon, was sent through the Strait two weeks before Taiwan’s Jan. 21 presidential election, won by President Tsai.

That’s nothing new. China took military action against some of the Taiwanese outer islands in 1955, forcing U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to send the Sixth Fleet to quell the shelling.

In 1996, China launched missiles near Taiwan to intimidate and discourage its first direct presidential elections and American ships were sent to the area.

The WHO has ignored Taiwan out of diplomatic obsequiousness to Beijing and has denied the unrecognized state information and resources. WHO officials even refused to answer questions about Taiwan’s success at limiting the coronavirus.

On March 28, Bruce Aylward, a Canadian who is Senior Advisor on Organizational Change to the director-general, seemed to disconnect a video interview with journalist Yvonne Tong of Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK, who asked him whether the WHO would reconsider Taiwan’s membership. 

Yet not being allowed into the WHO hasn’t been an insurmountable problem. Taiwan moved early against the virus under the assumption that this would become a major pandemic.

Last Dec. 31 Taiwan queried the WHO about this possibility but did not even receive a reply; however, on the same day Taiwanese health officials started screening passengers coming from Wuhan, China, centre of the outbreak.

It suspended Taiwanese visits to Hubei province on Jan. 25 and barred all Chinese arrivals on Feb. 6th.

By Jan. 20, Taiwan had activated its Central Epidemic Command Center, and on Jan. 30, President Tsai, who had been re-elected for a second term nine days earlier, gave a speech emphasizing that on Taiwan, medical personnel “working around the clock, through their concerted efforts,” had already brought the coronavirus outbreak “under control.”

With an enviable health system and a high technology base, Taiwan’s success in managing the coronavirus outbreak, despite being only 177 kilometres from the Chinese mainland, came down to banning international travels early, rigorous contact tracing, a lot of testing, and familiarity with earlier virus outbreaks originating in China, such as SARS in 2003. 

Using data from health, immigration, and customs agencies, Taiwan was able to track the whereabouts of quarantined individuals and therefore limited community transmission of COVID-19. It also helped to have an educated and disciplined population.

There have been only 440 confirmed cases and six deaths in a nation of 23.7 million people. Schools remain open, the economy is functioning, and citizens are living largely normal lives.

Taiwan is now even helping the rest of the world by churning out millions of face masks and sending them all over the globe, including 500,000 to Canada. The Canadian Red Cross will distribute them to hospitals, front-line workers and Indigenous communities.

Tedros, beholden to China for his job, on April 8 accused Taiwan’s government of being behind a campaign of racist insults against him. (He is Ethiopian).

Responded President Tsai, “We know how it feels to be discriminated against and isolated more than anyone else as we have been excluded from global organizations for years.”

Despite all this, Taiwan refuses to be bullied by Beijing. Last year, in response to a message from Chinese President Xi Jinping proposing further exploration of a “one country, two systems” scenario for Taiwan, Tsai reiterated that China must face the reality of the existence of the democratic system that the people of Taiwan have established.

China needs to respect the commitment of Taiwan, she added, “to freedom and democracy, and not foster divisions and offer inducements to interfere with the choices made by the people of Taiwan.”

When we observe how differently the People’s Republic and Taiwan have responded to COVID-19 – one engaged in coverups and obfuscation, the other dealing with it quickly and forthrightly – there should be no doubt among the people of Canada as to which one to support, despite China’s massive global footprint.