It is fortuitous that a new director-general will take the helm of the World Health Organization with the SARS epidemic in full swing. Dr. Jong Wook Lee, due to take over in July, could make one of his first orders of business granting observer status to the free government of Taiwan, which has more than 100 SARS cases and at least 14 dead from the virus, but is still barred from formal contact with the international health body.

Taiwan, unlike communist China, has been forthright about the infections that have arisen within its borders and eager to notify the international community, as well as to receive assistance. For a period in early April, the WHO was actually refusing to accept SARS numbers from the democratic island nation. The communists insisted that Taiwan could submit numbers to their regime, which would pass them on to the WHO — more than a bit cheeky, coming from the very regime whose secrecy is largely to blame for the virus’s spread.

When the WHO finally relented and accepted Taiwan’s numbers — and sent two doctors to the scene — it did so under the designation, “Taiwan, province of China.” The ambassador for Taiwan in New York, Andrew Hsia, called this “disrespectful,” as opposed to the more appropriate “Taiwan” or “Republic of China.” Mr. Hsia and the people of Free China are used to such slights, however. When Taiwan was admitted to the World Trade Organization, it came in, after much wrangling, as the “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.”

Too many countries are ready to kowtow to Beijing’s strong-arming when it comes to any move that might confer international legitimacy on Taiwan’s morally legitimate claim to sovereignty. America and Japan have supported Taiwan’s bid for observer status, but have been blocked by nations such nations as Spain, Pakistan, Cuba, and Argentina, according to news accounts, not to mention the customs territory of France.

The nations that have opposed Taiwan are taking sides against a free nation facing down a tyranny. Settling Taiwan’s statehood is a cause that deserves to be taken up and championed, but the observer status it seeks hardly ought to be controversial: The Vatican, the International Red Cross, and even the Palestine Liberation Organization all have been granted this status.

While ultimately America and other democracies would be making a mistake to settle for anything less than full membership in the WHO for Taiwan, for now the best course of action would be to prevail upon Dr. Lee to invite Taiwan to accept observer status — something he can do unilaterally. No doubt a South Korean director-general will see things differently than the Norwegian, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, who has held the position for the past five years, almost the entire duration of Taiwan’s campaign for admission. “We don’t want to argue now,” Mr. Hsia told The New York Sun. “Let’s be reasonable and practical.”