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"Pay close attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Ma Ying-jeou's spokesman deviates from truth again

... or should I say "is still doing so"?

Answering a question from an Associated Press reporter about a 2005 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the People's Republic of China (PRC), Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) had this to say (paraphrased here in the pro-unification China Times [中國時報], translation mine):
是否有這份備忘錄,從未獲得證實 [...]

The existence of this MOU hasn't yet been confirmed.
For them to not know about this MOU could only be the result of pure willful ignorance.

Read this, and know more than they (say they) do
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) has posted the text of a WHO document titled "Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China" online where the whole world (except for the Ma administration?) can read it. The document refers to Taiwan by the bizarre name of "Taiwan, China." Since the MOU was signed with the PRC, it doesn't require logical superpowers to deduce that they don't mean "Taiwan, ROC."

Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 1
Page 1
Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 2
Page 2
Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 3
Page 3
Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 4
Page 4
Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 5
Page 5
Implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the WHO Secretariat and China, Page 6
Page 6

Click thumbnails to enlarge
(I've re-uploaded the pages to a
server separate from FAPA's)

CleverClaire has links to several documents hosted on Google Docs which are related to the Ma administration's belittling of Taiwan's sovereignty, including a text-based version of the one linked in image form above. That document contains this:
7. Participation by Taiwanese medical and public health experts in technical activities is subject to the following conditions:
* The experts shall participate in their personal capacity. When designations are used (e.g. on conference badges or list of participants), reference shall be made to "Taiwan, China";
Then-PRC Minister of Health Gao Qiang (高強) also discussed the existence of the MOU in the Chinese media and elsewhere in May 2005. "Unconfirmed"? 才怪!

And, wait just a minute! Didn't Ma's Minister of Health, Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), claim that they "broke through" the "Taiwan, China" formula of the MOU? [alt. link] Sounds to me an awful lot like they did know.

Truly, madly...
Really -- can the Ma administration be trusted about anything, much less with Taiwan's sovereignty?

Ma Ying-jeou has changed the status quo. Why isn't the US State Department raising a stink? Oh, that's right. All that stuff about the previous president's "changing" of the status quo was but a ruse.

FURTHER READING:
* Check out Jerome F. Keating, PhD's latest: "Dumb and Dumber, the Naming of Chinese Taipei and its Acceptance."

* An article in today's Taipei Times reveals contradictions between the statements of Minister of Health Yeh and WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham.

* Michael Turton has a discussion of swine flu, er, H1N1, uh, swine flu "fever" with news of a new test kit developed in Taiwan and links to related discussions by CFR and Bruce Jacobs. My wife has also scoured local pharmacies and been unable to purchase protective masks at any of them. The much higher-priced ones that can be found in convenience stores are the only ones that seem to be currently available.

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Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

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