WHO, COVID-19, and Taiwan as the Ghost Island

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Taiwan issue continually haunts WHO. However, before addressing Taiwan's inclusion into WHO, we first describe how the era in which WHO was founded, and WHO's resulting constitutional mandate, have focused the Organisation's work on infectious disease eradication. Narrowing in on pandemic management – one aspect of infectious disease eradication – we describe what WHO can offer. These two sections allude to what Taiwan is excluded from. Using Taiwan's COVID-19 experience as a case study, Taiwan's successful management suggests that it is excluded from little, and thus marginally benefits in terms of public health. Yet, there are beneficial political gains in its call for inclusion. Taiwan's recent leveraging and amplification of its COVID-19 success story is thus an extension of its health diplomacy. Extending the call for inclusion online captures a novel digitised health diplomacy effort from Taiwan. The present study computationally analyses press-release and Twitter data to understand how Taiwanese government engages in these channels to frame and respond to the Taiwan/WHO issue. We find that Taiwan brands and propagates a ‘Taiwan Model’ through hashtags that revolve around coordination and solidarity as opposed to exclusion, indirectly criticising WHO. The piece concludes by discussing the foundational weaknesses in WHO's pandemic management effort in contrast to Taiwan's successful effort despite exclusion. Although Taiwan's inclusion to WHO is improbable due to larger geopolitical factors, inclusion is not a zero-sum game, with potential bi-directional benefits and lessons that can fortify domestic health capacities in preparation for the next pandemic.