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.
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