TECRO ASKS FOR US SUPPORT FOR TAIWAN OBSERVER

C O N F I D E N T I A L TOKYO 000397 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/TC LEVY DEPT FOR EAP/J ALBRIGHT AND MIDHA DEPT FOR OES/IHA E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/25/2016 TAGS: TBIO SOCI WHO JA KFLU SUBJECT: TECRO ASKS FOR US SUPPORT FOR TAIWAN OBSERVER STATUS AT WHA Classified By: EST Minister-Counselor Joyce Rabens for 1.4 b and d ¶1. (C) USAID Counselor and ESToff met with three officials from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Japan on January 25. TECRO Liaison Division Director Peter M. Y. Tsai, Deputy Director Juei-hu Hsu and Political Division Second Secretary Joe Ting-Chang Hsu requested the meeting, during which they raised the issue of Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting that is scheduled for this upcoming May. Tsai asked for the United States' assistance in helping Taipei obtain observer status at the World Health Organization prior to the WHA. He said that if the United States and Japan supported Taipei, Taiwan would more likely be able to participate at the May Assembly. ¶2. (C) The TECRO officials were also interested in learning more on whether the U.S. Embassy assisted in getting agreement for three Taiwan representatives to attend (backbench) the recent Japan-WHO Joint Meeting on Early Response to a Potential Influenza Pandemic held in Tokyo on January 12-13 and asked for assistance with such requests in the future. ESToff responded by saying that experts around the world understood that avian influenza and other infectious diseases were global health threats and that it would be important to ensure that the global community's efforts were coordinated and efficient because such diseases did not stop at borders. In response to a question from ESToff, Joe Hsu said that TECRO Tokyo does not have direct contact with Japanese government ministries such as the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) to discuss avian influenza preparedness because they "could not", but said that Taiwan had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) to share virus samples. Hsu explained that Taiwan had shared SARS samples using the MOU in the past before sending reports in to the WHO. He inferred in his subsequent comments that it was frustrating for Taipei to be unable to work with the WHO directly. ¶3. (C) The TECRO officials discussed with AID Counselor some of Taipei's overseas aid activities, which focus primarily on Asia through loan assistance. Hsu said that Taiwan's ODA efforts now reached 0.13 percent of GDP. Taiwan works closely with the Asian Development Bank. In addition, Taiwan has provided grant aid to Vietnam and Malaysia on pandemic flu preparedness, but not much to other Southeast Asian countries. There was interest in discussing the potential for closer aid coordination on the ground between Taiwan aid authorities and USAID. SCHIEFFER