Kao's WHO invitation sparks furore

OUTCRY: Among the criticisms are allegations that the PFP legislator has been invited on the recommendation of China, but he says the hoopla is a DPP political ploy

By Sandy Huang

STAFF REPORTER

Astonished looks crossed the faces of many people when they saw the list of invitees to the World Health Organization's (WHO) global SARS conference due to be held in Malaysia tomorrow and Wednesday. Apart from the four medical experts recommended by the Taiwanese government to be invited to the event, the name of PFP Legislator Kao Ming-chien -- not an official delegate appointed by the government -- also appeared on the list.

WHO spokesman Iain Simpson said the organization invited Kao because of his involvement in fighting the epidemic, but given that Kao was not directly involved in treating SARS patients or researching the disease, his unexpected invitation to the conference drew speculation from some that the reason he was invited was not as simple as it seems.

DPP Legislator Lee Chen-nan, for one, charged that Kao was only able to be invited to the event because of a recommendation from China.

"I'd like to call on Kao, as a Taiwanese legislator, to turn down the invitation and not attend the event in protest against China recommending him," Lee said.

If Kao must attend, Lee said, he should keep a log detailing his conduct and comments every day during his stay, to make himself accountable to the Taiwanese public upon his return.

"I hope that Kao would rein in at the edge of the precipice and not become Beijing's mouthpiece and stooge in Taiwan," Lee said.

Pointing out that Kao's sponsoring cross-strait videoconferencing had allowed Chinese leaders to cash in on the SARS epidemic and advance its longstanding goal of subjugating Taiwan, DPP Legislator Charles Chiang said Kao had ended up campaigning on behalf of Beijing and agreed with its unification propaganda.

Kao, as president of the Taiwan Medical Alliance Association (TMAA), staged a videoconference early last month and invited both Taiwanese and Chinese experts of preventive medicine and respiratory physicians to take part in the event. The purpose of the event was the experts to share SARS diagnostic experiences.

The videoconferencing, however, ended up undermining Taiwan's efforts to join the WHO last month as the Chinese Vice Premier and Minister of Health Wu Yi, at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, cited the conference as an example of Beijing supervising Taiwan's control of the epidemic. This claim nipped Taiwan's seventh attempt to join the organization in the bud.

In his defense, Kao said that he was merely echoing President Chen Shui-bian's call on cross-strait cooperative ventures with China and Hong Kong to combat SARS, regardless of political parties' differences and boundaries. He added that the televised communication would help the two sides of the Strait collaborate on fighting SARS.

Kao rebutted Lee's charge that China played a role in his invitation to the WHO conference in Malaysia.

He stressed that his invitation to the event was purely as acknowledgement and in recognition of his efforts in sponsoring the videoconferences which were designed to discuss and exchange opinions on ways to diagnose the SARS virus and prevent its spread. Kao called Lee's accusations "rubbish."

"I am attending the conference not on recommendation from China but on the invitation of the WHO," Kao said.

"To drag China into the issue is an attempt by the DPP administration to twist the original purpose of me hosting the videoconferences in an effort to disguise its incompetence in fighting the virus," he said.

"It makes me wonder about the fickleness of the world when the government treats me as if I am the SARS virus itself, while the WHO, in comparison, regards me as a SARS prevention expert," Kao said when asked to comment on the hoopla over his invitation to the SARS conference.