Sherrod Brown: “I again join the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) in urging Congress to authorize the U.S. to endorse and obtain…”

“I again join the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) in urging Congress to authorize the U.S. to endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan at the annual summit of the World Health Assembly, the meeting of the World Health Organization, set for next month, May of 2004, in Geneva. H.R. 4019 is another important step in fulfilling the commitment that we in this country made in the 1994 Taiwan policy review to more actively support Taiwan's membership in organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. We should continue to support Taiwan in international bodies. We should continue to advocate for Taiwan to be represented in the WHO. There are more reasons today to support this bill than there were last year even. Those reasons are SARS and the avian flu outbreaks. How much more limited would the effect of SARS worldwide have been if Taiwan's government had been fully engaged in the work of the World Health Organization? How much more quickly would the disaster have been contained if China had not covered up the outbreak and Taiwan could have stepped forward?”