Taiwan China and WHO; China's grand strategy

This topic has been discussed a lot on many platforms by now. China wants to enjoy hegemonic world power. It wants to pull down America from its supreme position. They are arranging and developing their military buildup for the very reason since many years now. They took over the provinces that are not theirs by force. They are trying to take over the South China sea. They are quite successful in shutting the mouths of smaller countries in their south. Their economy is a sham, according to some bankers, economists, and businessmen. Money that comes from the people of China does not serve them. Most of the Chinese GDP is used by the Communist party.

 

The Communist party uses most of the GDP for investing in different countries to take them over time. We know a lot about their expansion plans and trade projects like OBOR, CPEC or Make in China 2025. There is no freedom of speech in China. Press and the internet are in complete control of the Communist Party of China. They use authoritarian power to smash every resistance that comes in their way of becoming the supreme power in the world order.

 

 

But states and provinces like Hongkong and Taiwan are making China nervous. Hong Kong protests since last year are one of the most talked about topics in the world media. Likewise, Taiwan and China conflict is also a hot cake for geopolitical observers.

 

 

After World War II, the Republic of China - one of the victors - began ruling Taiwan with the consent of its allies, the US and UK, after Japan surrendered and relinquished control of territory it had taken from China. However, in the next few years, the leader at the time Chiang Kai-shek's troops were beaten back by the Communist armies under Mao Zedong. In decades of hostile approach towards China's aggression and anger, around 2000, Taiwan started moving towards the process of democratisation and Beijing began claiming sovereignty over Taiwan.

 

Despite having its own military, a democratically elected government, currency, sports teams very few countries recognise Taiwan as a sovereign country. Many countries in the world do not recognise Taiwan as an independent country for various reasons. Many of them don't want to take China as their enemy. Powerful economies have their economic interests. China has always been an irresistible market for the US and others. In the 1970s, there were 600 million people in China as against 18 million in Taiwan. Automatically these countries chose to keep mum or ignore the China Taiwan conflict. Again, the One China policy emphasised and enforced by China for making any contract with them also keeps countries away from recognising Taiwan as an independent entity. These countries do not establish any diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

 

Now, because of the Corona pandemic, economies of almost every country, international relationships, geopolitical arrangements and everything needs restructuring. China has done tremendous blunders while handling Corona crisis that originated in Wuhan, China. People all over the world are calling this virus a CCP virus ie. Chinese Communist Party Virus. Xi Jinping is facing stiff resistance from everywhere even within party. The World has turned upside down even for the most robust economies of the world. The grid is about to change in the coming years.

 

 

Taiwan has a long experience of fighting off pandemics that originate or come from China to Taiwan. Hence, a key element in Taiwan's preparedness was the lessons learned from its devastating experience with the SARS epidemic in 2003, which caused 71 deaths on the island of 23 million people. Later that year, Taiwan created a body called as 'Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC)' to coordinate across government departments and mobilise the necessary resources during future crises. And from January this body started coordinating with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to contain the pandemic. They took immensely effective decisions and implemented them very diligently.

 

While Taiwan was kept in the dark by WHO and China in fighting off the pandemic by hiding all the data and important information from the world, Taiwan very innovatively found ways to stop Covid (the china virus) from spreading inside its territory. Unlike China, they shared whatever information they could with the world like a true democraterian, humanist and matured country.

 

Due to WHO's arrangements with China, Taiwan does not have any direct link of communication with WHO. They have to depend upon some sympathetic governments or NGOs for direction and circulars in public health matters also in times of crisis such as this. WHO does not take into consideration any recommendations coming from Taiwan no matter how important they are. In February, some Taiwanease scientists participated in WHO's meeting discussing technicalities of Coronavirus. For that, they did not disclose their nationality. Still, China claims that they gave permission to WHO to allow these scientists to participate in the meeting. Taiwan has outrightly rejected this claim saying,' our scientists participated in their own capacity, contacts and merits. We did not need China's permission to participate in WHO meeting. Also there are many instances that WHO body members don't even take questions about Taiwan during interviews with international journalists.

 

Good news for Taiwan is that the US has declared support to Taiwan's World Health Assembly Observer Status. Though this move has angered China, Taiwan has thanked US for speaking up and now both the countries have signed an MOU to jointly conduct research and development of rapid tests; Research and production of vaccines, medicines, Contact tracing techniques and technology, Joint conferences with scientists and experts, and Cooperation and exchanges of medical supplies and equipments.

 

US President Donald Trump has also talked about cutting the US funding to WHO for they are taking China-centric stands and deceiving the people of the world. To counter this statement, WHO president has threatened to stop the supply of Body bags. Isn't it everybody's responsibility to get over politics and cooperate during this hour of crisis?