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.

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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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 10:00 pm and is filed under China, Events, Institutions, International Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.