Additional Information on Taiwan's Bid for the World Health Organization (WHO)

1. The 23 million people of Taiwan would like to present Taiwan before the WHA as a “health entity” and for it to take part in the WHA functions and activities as an observer. This approach arises out of a practical need for both Taiwan and the WHO. It is also motivated by the goodwill of the people of Taiwan who seek to minimize any unnecessary political implications or controversies that might otherwise be precipitated by the filing of a membership application.
    
2. Currently, Taiwan is not represented in anyway either in the WHO or the WHA. The member state that claims to represent Taiwan in the WHO and the WHA has neither the authorization from the people of Taiwan, nor jurisdiction over or control of any health matters related to Taiwan. The member making that unsupportable claim, for example, cannot even compile the health data about Taiwan in its report to the WHO. Vital health statistics concerning the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are so different from each other (as attached) that any estimate or inference about Taiwan’s health situation on the basis of those Mainland Chinese figures will be totally misleading or meaningless. Nevertheless, one observation may be made by comparing the health data between the two. That is, despite the fact that China has been saying she is helping Taiwan in many medical fields, she herself perhaps needs more help from a much more developed public health system such as Taiwan’s.
    
3. The member state that currently claims to represent Taiwan in the WHO is both incapable and unwilling to transmit any WHO resources to Taiwan. Taiwan has never had the illusion that such an undue claimant could help it obtain much-needed access to and assistance from the WHO anyway. It can be said that as SARS cases were found and confirmed this April in China, the sheer quantity of people-to-people contacts between the Mainland and Taiwan alone justifies early and proper notification to Taiwan. But the Chinese Ministry of Health did not do so. Taiwan was not notified until April 23 by Beijing’s Red Cross.
    
4. Under no circumstances does Taiwan wish to engage the undue claimant on any political issue in the WHO. Taiwan cares only about playing its rightful role in the global health system, especially in the wake of two recent major infectious disease outbreaks in Asia, SARS and avian flu. Taiwan suffered 73 deaths (almost one-fifth of the world’s SARS fatalities) and a loss of 3 million poultry destroyed during these two epidemics respectively.
    
5. The forthcoming IHR will further prove the importance of including Taiwan in the system. As a centrally located East Asian island, Taiwan is also an international transportation hub and the 14th largest trading power in the world. In addition to its 23 million people, Taiwan’s health administration each year has to deal with health matters relating to 27 million international air passengers, 225,000 international flights, 51,000 international-serviced vessels, and hundreds of millions of tons of international cargo. Moreover, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has designated a large Flight Information Region (FIR, almost 200,000 square kilometers) for Taiwan’s air traffic control, in which usually 1.5 million controlled flights a year are served with almost 100 million passengers from 67 airlines of some 30 major nations. Besides Taiwan’s health administration and health authorities, who else can enforce the IHR or handle health emergencies regarding such a huge volume of international traffic?
    
6. For the WHO, Taiwan’s inclusion should be a matter of practical need and health imperatives. It is unfair, impractical and even dangerous to expect that Taiwan, as a non-member/non-observer or even a non-entity in the WHO, can function like any other member/observer in enforcing relevant international health resolutions, regulations and conventions; for even though Taiwan is willing, it sometimes cannot fully understand these rules because it lacks adequate access and even the most minimal status in the Organization, all this because of the ubiquitous obstruction from the undue claimant.
    
7. Ironically, the undue claimant only pays a WHO membership due of 1.5% to represent—it alleges—not only the most populous nation in the world, but also Taiwan, which has a GNP almost half that of Canada. By comparison, it seems incomprehensible that currently the Republic of Korea pays 1.8% and, when the government in Taipei was representing both sides of the Taiwan Strait in the UN system before 1971, it paid dues as high as 5%.

Comparison of the Vital Health Indicators between Taiwan and People's Republic of China (PRC): A Selected List

	Taiwan	People’s Republic of China (PRC)	Comparison Taiwan/PRC
Life expectancy at birth (years), 2002 Male Female	73.2 78.9	69.6 72.7	3.6 years longer 6.2 years longer
Infant mortality (per 1000), 2001	6	45	1 : 7.5
Measles reported (per 10,000 of population), 2000	0.021	0.55	1 : 26
HIV/AIDS reported (per 10,000 of population), 2001	0.37	6.5	1 : 17.6
Percentage of population covered by medical insurance, 2001	97%	6.1%	16 : 1
Per capita total health expenditure at average exchange rate (US$), 2001	743	49	15 : 1
Number of medical care personnel (per 10,000 of population), 2000	71.1	43.3	1.66 : 1
Number of nursing personnel (per 10,000 of population), 2000	35.58	9.8	3.6 : 1
Number of hospitals and clinics (per 10,000 of population), 2000	8.07	2.51	3.2 : 1

* For OVERALL HEALTH SYSTEM PERFORMANCE, China ranks 144th among 191 WHO Member States (between Burundi and Mongolia), World Health Report 2000, published by the WHO, p. 152 as enclosed. As Taiwan is not a WHO member, its health system performance can not be ranked in the World Health Report.

* However, a similar ranking was done around the same time by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), 2^nd quarter 2000. The EIU has processed the raw data into a set of healthcare indices to rank 27 key countries including Taiwan and Mainland China, according to their state of health and quality of medical practice. Taiwan ranks no. 2 among the 27, while China is no. 19.

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