Beijing’s Growing Dominance of World Bodies Seen in Health Group’s Treatment of Taipei

On the face of it, Taiwan would be a much more positive contributor than Communist China to an integrated global health institution. Yet, a Taipei official will be on the outside looking in when the World Health Assembly meets at Geneva next week. The WHA snub — part of Beijing’s ever-escalating drive to suffocate the self-governing island — is a thorn in the side of President Tsai. Unlike past years, it comes as warnings grow in America and beyond about the perils of a possible People’s Liberation Army invasion of Taiwan. “The official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated,” Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, told CNBC this week. “One doesn’t have to read between the lines, one has to read the lines,” he said, calling an invasion inevitable. “I think you should take their word seriously. They mean it.”Disruption in the supply of advanced semiconductors, an industry Taiwan dominates, would be detrimental for more than electric vehicle makers, Mr. Musk warned. “I’m not sure where you could get an iPhone for example,” he said.While a full-scale invasion may not be around the corner, Beijing often conducts threatening flights and naval maneuvers around the island. The People’s Liberation Army “continues to strengthen military training and preparations and will resolutely smash any form of Taiwanese independence secession, along with attempts at outside interference,” a Chinese defense ministry spokesman, Colonel Tan Kefei, said Tuesday. At the same time, Beijing is escalating a diplomatic campaign to deny Taiwan access to international bodies. Taipei’s health minister, Hsueh Jui-yuan, traveled to Geneva, where the WHA, the World Health Organization’s governing body, will conduct its annual meeting May 21-30. There, Mr. Hsueh is expected to meet officials from friendly countries, but he will be excluded from the main forum. “Taiwan’s isolation from WHA, the preeminent global health forum, is unjustified and undermines inclusive global public health cooperation and security, which the world demands,” Secretary Blinken said earlier this month. “Taiwan is a reliable partner, a vibrant democracy, and a force for good in the world,” he added. Communist China, though, is increasingly dominating global bodies, even while its influence outweighs its monetary contribution.Taiwan gained WHO observer status in 2009, when President Ma accepted Beijing’s “one China” formulation. It lost that status in 2017, after the more independent-minded Ms. Tsai was elected, and as Secretary Xi started to amp up Beijing’s belligerence toward the island. Following on Speaker Pelosi and McCarthy’s public meetings with Ms. Tsai, a former British prime minister, Liz Truss, is visiting Taipei this week. “We know what happens to the environment or world health under totalitarian regimes that don’t tell the truth,” Ms. Truss said, referring to Communist China. “You can’t believe a word they say.”That is especially true when it comes to global health. One of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative’s most prized projects, the China-Laos railway, is under increased scrutiny. Reuters is reporting Thursday that the project disrupts Lao habitats “that are home to bats hosting similar pathogens” to the one that caused the Covid-19 pandemic.The project, according to the report, is bringing humans close to remote areas populated by infected bats, while the fast-moving trains could help to quickly spread viruses. If so, Beijing is seen as unlikely to immediately notify the WHO of the lurking danger. This week, Senator Rubio of Florida issued a report indicating that in 2019 a “serious biosafety incident occurred at the state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology,” where experiments in coronaviruses have been conducted since 2004. Safety problems “could have allowed a pathogen to escape the complex,” unleashing the global pandemic. “After years of censorship, there is growing evidence that some type of lab accident is responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mr. Rubio said. His report documents the Communist Party’s efforts at “international deception” to hide the lab’s role in spreading a virus that devastated the world’s economy and led to millions of deaths globally. In contrast, Taiwan is a “trusted ally of the United States and a world leader in global health security,” Representative Young Kim, a Republican, said this week after President Biden signed into law a bipartisan bill that she and a fellow House Californian, Democrat Brad Sherman, initiated. The bill demanded to reinstate Taiwan’s observer status at the WHO. Taipei’s handling of the pandemic was far more efficient, transparent, and ultimately successful than its mainland neighbor’s. Yet, the WHO, which had bent over backward to accommodate Beijing’s denials of the pandemic origin, is disinviting Taiwan and embracing Communist China.Good intentions and vocal protestations aside, Washington is witnessing the WHO goings on quite helplessly. Will it be able to push back more forcefully if and when Beijing decides to turn its threat of usurping Taiwan into a reality?

Beijing’s Growing Dominance of World Bodies Seen in Health Group’s Treatment of Taipei

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