National Post and the Charles Adler Show
I wrote an Op-Ed for yesterday's National Post about the outbreak of a severe strain of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease in China, and how China refuses to permit Taiwan to join the World Health Organization, even as an observer. Here's the whole item, and here are some excerpts:
The Beijing Olympic games begin on August 8, which means there's still enough time for all 10 Biblical plagues to be wreaked on China.
So far, we've seen riots in Tibet, an earthquake in Sichuan and now the risk of massive floods after dams cracked during the earthquake. And then there's news that China's ageing nuclear weapons facilities were damaged, too.
But perhaps the biggest potential threat is a severe form of "hand-foot-mouth disease" (HFMD) spread by a virus known as E-71. In the past month, 43 children across China have died and close to 30,000 have fallen ill. Like other recent epidemics in China, such as bird flu and SARS, Communist officials denied for weeks that HFMD was out of control and the Chinese media, which are controlled by the government, are probably still downplaying the true scope of the problem. It's unsettling but not surprising to read in Xinhua, the state news agency, about the government's plan to stop the epidemic with "a recipe involving a number of Chinese herbs."
But there is an Asian country with great expertise at fighting HFMD. In 1998, Taiwan had an outbreak that claimed 78 people, and smaller outbeaks in 2000 and 2001. And unlike China, Taiwan has a first-world economy with a Western standard of health care.
Too bad China won't let Taiwan help...
The Vatican is an observer at the WHO. So is the PLO. Even Puerto Rico, a U. S. territory, is an associate member. But not Taiwan...
Again, take this week's WHO meeting in Geneva. China's veto of Taiwanese medical observers was expected. But China went further, banning not just Taiwanese doctors, but denying press credentials to reporters from Taiwan. China is now effectively exporting its policies of media censorship.
The payoff for giving the Olympics to a sweltering, overcrowded, smoggy city was supposed to be that China would try to put its best foot forward, and liberalize itself like most other leading powers. No such thing has happened; China has in fact dragged our standards down, at least at the WHO. And in the meantime, tens of thousands of Chinese children are paying the price.
Charles Adler also had me on his national radio show to talk about it. You can listen to that discussion here -- just click on May 20th, at 2 p.m. MT. I came on at about 7 minutes into the hour.
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