Thais and our neighbors will have much to gain if the new President of the United States of America is committed to finding peaceful solutions to conflicts and de-escalating tensions in the region.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won the race for White House on Saturday morning, U.S. local time, after the world was mired in anxiety for three full days. 

The man set to become the 46th President of the United States has much to do, as noted by the American media. More than 235,000 of Biden’s countrymen have perished in the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. economy is faltering, and America is more divided, politically and culturally, than ever. 

Biden himself acknowledged as much when he gave a speech upon his victory at the polls. 

“The purpose of our politics, the work of our nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot,” Biden said.

But no less important for his agenda should be an attention to Thailand – one of America’s oldest allies – and its neighbors in Southeast Asia, a region whose strategic importance to the world’s superpowers has grown dramatically in recent years. 

Confrontational approaches adopted by Washington in the past several years appear to achieve little apart from fanning tensions.

Biden’s presidency should seek to confront any challenges it may face in the region by placing values on a peaceful resolution, rather than pushing for an escalation that could lead to an open conflict in Thailand’s backyard. 

America has many friends in Southeast Asia. There is no reason for the Biden administration not to engage more with Thailand and the ASEAN community to find a mutually beneficial relationship and solve whatever problems that could arise.

Multilateralism should be the key idea governing future U.S. interactions with Thailand and other ASEAN members. 

The U.S. also possesses a valuable asset that continues to play a key role in cementing its soft power and inspire many in Southeast Asia: democracy.

If the American public can show its audience here that democratic principles can indeed resolve ideological differences peacefully, as well as build a society based on social equality and economic fairness, it would without a doubt set a successful example for Southeast Asians to follow. 

The yet-to-be-formed Biden administration would do well by listening to U.S. Ambassador to Moscow George Frost Kennan who in 1947 offered advice on how to demonstrate that American democracy is a shining beacon for the rest of the world. 

“It is rather a question of the degree to which the United States can create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time,” Kennan wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine. 

The next chapter of American history under Biden’s leadership is yet to be written. But let us hope it will leave a page that speaks of peace and solidarity in Southeast Asia. 

By Dr. Chen Shih-chung, Taiwan’s Minister of Health and Welfare

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there have more than 40 million cases and more than one million deaths around the world. The virus has had an enormous impact on global politics, employment, economics, trade and financial systems.

Among countries striving to control the pandemic impact, Taiwan and Thailand both have excellent performance. Two countries were ranked number 1 and 4 by Bloomberg Economics on the efforts of battling COVID-19. All experiences received by these countries during fighting against the virus are valuable and worthy of sharing with the global community.

Taiwan has responded to the pandemic threats swiftly through strategies such as the operation of specialized command system, the implementation of meticulous border control measures, the production and distribution of adequate medical supplies, the employment of home quarantine and isolation measures and related care services, the application of IT systems, the publishing of transparent and open information, and the execution of precise screening and testing.

Read: Recovery From COVID Will be Hard, And Taiwan Wants to Help

Taiwan has been fortunate enough to contain the virus. As of October 7, Taiwan had had just 523 confirmed cases and seven deaths; meanwhile, life and work have continued much as normal for the majority of people.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 has reminded the world that infectious diseases know no borders and do not discriminate. Nations should work together to address the threat of emerging diseases.

For this reason, once Taiwan had stabilized its containment of the virus and ensured its sufficient supply of medical resources, we began to share our experience and exchange information on containing COVID-19 with global public health professionals and scholars through related forums, APEC’s High-Level Meeting on Health and the Economy, the Global Cooperation Training Framework, and other virtual bilateral meetings.

Up to June 2020, Taiwan had held nearly 80 online conferences, sharing the Taiwan Model with experts from governments, hospitals, universities, and think tanks in 32 countries. Counting separately, Taiwan has held 13 online seminars with Thai scholars and experts alone, and many related online discussions with counterparts in various fields.

Thailand, being one of the well-performed countries in combating this pandemic, has imposed a strict border control and achieved great success in containing the severe public health threat.

Therefore, the two recognized countries, Taiwan and Thailand, with reputation of well-containing pandemic thus have been closely working together. Officials and NGOs workers have jointly sharing experience managing the pandemic. The aforementioned connections have manifested the width and depth of bilateral relationship between and will cooperate more closely.

Taiwan’s donations of medical equipment and anti-pandemic supplies to countries in need also continue.

By June, we had donated 51 million surgical masks, 1.16 million N95 masks, 600,000 isolation gowns, and 35,000 forehead thermometers to more than 80 countries. Thailand, being one of our valuable partners of our New Southbound Policy, has never been excluded from the core of our attention.

Taiwanese government and entrepreneurs in Thailand up until now have donated medical supplies and daily necessities in a total amount of more than 8 million baht. Donations included necessities such as oil and rice and further extended to significant medical supplies like 1.35 million pieces of surgical masks, Personal Protective Equipment(PPE), oxygen concentrator, and portable ultrasound system, etc.

The donations in all represent not only the care and love to our Thai friends, but also the unceasing momentum from Taiwan aiming to further strengthen the bilateral ties and share the public health experience with the world.

To ensure access to vaccines, Taiwan has joined the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) co-led by GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance; the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations; and the World Health Organization.

And our government is actively assisting domestic manufacturers in hopes of accelerating the development and production of successful vaccines, bringing them to market as quickly as possible and putting an end to this pandemic.

To prepare for a possible next wave of the pandemic as well as the approaching flu season, Taiwan is maintaining its strategies of encouraging citizens to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, and strengthening border quarantine measures, community-based prevention, and medical preparedness.

Furthermore, we are actively collaborating with domestic and international partners to obtain vaccines and develop optimal treatments and accurate diagnostic tools, jointly safeguarding global public health security.

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven that Taiwan is an integral part of the global public health network and that Taiwan Model can help other countries combat the pandemic. To recover better, WHO needs Taiwan.

We urge WHO and related parties to acknowledge Taiwan’s longstanding contributions to global public health, disease prevention, and the human right to health, and to firmly support Taiwan’s inclusion in WHO.

Taiwan’s comprehensive participation in WHO meetings, mechanisms, and activities would allow us to work with the rest of the world in realizing the fundamental human right to health as stipulated in the WHO Constitution.

About the author
Dr. Chen Shih-chung has been serving as the Minister of Health and Welfare of the Republic of China (Taiwan) since 2017.