We can learn so much from Taiwan’s response to Covid – their exclusion from the World Health Organisation is a disgrace

The news about Covid-19 continues to worsen. In the US, hospitalisations and cases have hit record highs, while across Europe, lockdowns have been reintroduced to slow the spread of the virus.

But in parts of Asia, the story is very different. Countries like China, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand continue to have daily new cases in the single digits. In fact, when Donald Trump was infected and the virus spread through the White House, there were more cases among his staff than across the 125 million people in Vietnam, New Zealand and Taiwan combined.

This latter example – Taiwan – has been particularly successful in coping with the virus. The island saw its most significant first-wave peak in late March, with a paltry 27 new cases per day at its worst. Taiwan, an island that sits less than 100 miles off the coast of the pandemic’s original epicentre, has not seen a local case of Covid-19 for more than 220 days. It has recorded just seven deaths in total throughout the entire pandemic, or roughly 0.3 deaths per million of the population. This is the lowest ratio among the 179 countries and territories monitored by the John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Belgium, at the other end of the spectrum, has seen nearly 1,300 people per million die from coronavirus; the UK more than 780 per million.

Even more impressive: Taiwan has managed this feat without ever going into a national lockdown. As a result, the economy grew robustly in the third quarter, by 3.3 per cent year-on-year; the UK economy, by contrast, was just under 10 per cent smaller than the previous year.

For some countries in Asia that have been able to limit the effects of the coronavirus, such as China or North Korea, their success can partially be explained by their authoritarian governments and willingness to curtail civil liberties in a way that makes governments in Western Europe and North America shudder. Sure, critics will say, they have kept a lid on the virus, but at what price to freedom?

The same cannot be said for Taiwan, a territory that has had, since the late 1980s, a robust and lively democracy, as well as a society used to protest and dissent and an open and free media.

So how has Taiwan managed this remarkable feat? The government’s response was early, it was comprehensive and it was supported by broad community and societal participation. As early as 1 January, Taiwan was screening passengers flying in from Wuhan, even as China obfuscated about the virus. Mask supply was plentiful, partially owing to the country’s preparations after the Sars outbreak in 2003, and societal use was ubiquitous.

The government used and encouraged open transparency and the use of big data and analytics to help with PPE supply, public information and track and trace. Quarantining is monitored through mobile phone usage, with the data kept fuzzy to increase privacy, and people are financially incentivised to stay in quarantine when required.

Given the incredible success story from Taiwan, it should be a shining example of Covid-19 response, lauded throughout the world, with governments seeking advice and support. But in reality, Taiwan’s voice is suppressed, as the island remains excluded from the primary multinational health organisation – the World Health Organisation.

Despite Taiwan having attended the World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making body, as an observer from 2009 to 2016, China has refused to allow the island to participate, as a snub to the more pro-autonomy government of Tsai Ing-wen.

The WHO claims that it coordinates with Taiwan, and there is indeed a line of communication. But in reality, Taiwan goes largely ignored by the WHO. Despite Taiwan reporting timely and prescient information about Covid-19 as early as January 2020 to the WHO, this information was never shared with other member states. It is heartbreaking to consider how many lives could have been saved had Taiwan’s effective diagnosis of the situation been supported and proliferated by the WHO. Taiwan is still excluded from receiving information directly from the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which sits under the WHO.

At a time when Taiwan’s experience could be invaluable to governments around the world, its voice is being stifled. This happened most recently last week, when, despite representations from the US and European nations, Taiwan was once again refused an invitation to the World Health Assembly.

The UK has a stated position of supporting Taiwanese inclusion into the WHO, as statehood is not considered by London as a prerequisite. The British mission in Taipei issued a statement this month supporting Taiwan’s participation in the WHA. But London’s support has been far from vocal, perhaps for fear of angering Beijing.

This should change; the UK should do more to push for Taipei to be admitted to the WHO. The policy has a moral imperative – to include an entity of 23.5 million people into the world’s international health body amid a global pandemic – and that should be enough reason. The fact that Palestine has been a permanent observer to the World Health Assembly since 1974 makes the case stronger. But if even more reason were needed, then London can consider that supporting Taipei would fit into a broader strategic narrative of defending the democracies in East Asia from coercion from China, just as the US is developing stronger relations with Taiwan.

A concerted campaign of publicising Taiwan’s exclusion and lobbying member states to push for change will take diplomatic capital. Hard-headed realists will claim that it is an exercise in futility, as China carries an effective veto. But it’s still difficult to argue in the wake of this devastating pandemic that any policy that could help mitigate further such disasters should not be pursued.

Christian Le Miere is a foreign policy adviser and the founder and managing director of Arcipel, a strategic advisory firm based in London