Wednesday, June 25, 2003
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Hsiao Bi-khim : Richard asked me to talk about the post-SARS, post-WHO and preelection situation in Taiwan. And first of all, I genuinely hope that we are in a sustainable post-SARS period. The recent outbreak of SARS has really tremendously affected not only our daily lives, but I think also the political landscape within Taiwan.

I think I'm going to kind of put my presentation into three general areas. First of all, of course, how SARS has affected us both domestically and also internationally. And then the second will lead us into the area of cross-state relations. I think SARS has certainly had an impact on that economically, but also politically. The third general area—I know a lot of people have been asking me how we're doing in the election polls. And I've got some good news for us.

First of all, the SARS impact, as I said, has really affected our daily lives. The most obvious thing is we've all become sticker collectors. We have our daily temperatures taken in every major office building we visit, and we get a sticker—a colored sticker for each day for each office building. So usually, by the end of the day, we end up with five or six different stickers, showing everybody how healthy we are with a normal temperature. (Laughter.) But that's just the regular part. I think, at the height—at the peak of the outbreak in Taiwan, there was genuine fear among the general public. And, for the first time I was hearing from doctors—or doctors were telling me that it's the first time they really felt scared and afraid, because of so many unknown factors about SARS and the contagious effect that it would have.

But in political language, people ask me, has that helped us or has it hurt us in our domestic political standing. I just want to say that I think we've lost some points, but we've also gained some points. I'm talking about this from a DPP perspective in the domestic context.

We gained some points in the sense that, the control of SARS in the earlier phases, when it was imported from Hong Kong and China, was internationally recognized to the extent that, even Americans were sent to Taiwan from other countries for treatment, not for SARS, but for other issues.

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Event Information

Hsiao Bi-khim, member of the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan) and Director of the Department of International Affairs of the Democratic Progressive Party, spoke at a CNAPS Roundtable Luncheon on June 25. Ms. Hsiao commented on Taiwan's handling of the recent SARS crisis, its efforts to engage the World Health Organization, and the DPP's standing in Taiwan's pre-election opinion polls, and answered questions from an audience comprising local Taiwan experts and policy makers.