Donald Trump, “China’s Man at WHO”, and Taiwan.
Dr. Ilias Iliopoulos
During a press conference in Geneva on April 8, the audience was badly surprised by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Mr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who unleashed an unbecoming attack on the Republic of China/Taiwan. Mr. Tedros groundlessly accused the government of Taiwan of having encouraged the Taiwanese people to discredit him. Truth is though that WHO Director-General managed to discredit himself, he alone.
Mr. Tedros demonstrated an incredible lack of awareness of his institutional capacity, role, and duty when he lost his temper in view of the criticism he received, via internet – from unidentified individuals of unknown nationality – because of his false handling of the COVID-19. It is only reasonable that the people of the world should monitor the response of WHO and its leader to the pandemic. Instead, Mr. Tedros went on, without any attempt at verification, to accuse the Government of the Republic of China/Taiwan of having encouraged a discreditation campaign targeting him.
If truth be told, it has been universally acknowledged that the WHO miserably failed in tackling the new coronavirus crisis. The main reason isn’t corruption in general or mismanagement, though the WHO has a terrible track record on both. It’s the top: Director-General Mr. Tedros Adhanom, a.k.a. Beijing’s man at Geneva. Surprised? Have you expected an intergovernmental organization with the word “health” in its name to be led by an outstanding medical doctor with a degree from a prestigious medical school? Well, Mr. Tedros is not a medical doctor, but he has a Ph.D. in community health from the University of Nottingham. Is he a non-political technocrat, at least? By no means; Mr. Tedros was Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister before he moved to the WHO.
As Ethiopia’s foreign minister (2012-2016), Mr. Tedros presided over a deepening of Ethiopia’s special relationship with the People’s Republic of China. It was during his term as foreign minister that Addis-Abeba became mainland China’s aviation hub for the African continent. The P.R. of China also financed the construction of the capital’s new international airport, which was built by the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC). Mr. Tedros was already serving in the Ethiopian cabinet at the opening of the new China-funded headquarters for the African Union in Addis-Abeba, in January 2012. Luckily for him, he left for Geneva before it was revealed that the building was riddled with surveillance bugs – an issue which created a huge political scandal.
Coming back to the World Health Organization/WHO, this international organization should be about mankind, and this means that it should be about all people regardless of citizenship, origin, religion, gender, etc. Yet, the universality of the human right to health that the WHO (and the UN, by the way) proclaim does not seem to extend to the Republic of China/Taiwan and its 23.000.000 people.
The WHO keeps applying the opprobrious and dangerous practice of Taiwan’s exclusion from that international organization in order to please the People’s Republic of China, i.e. Mainland China. What makes the WHO case even more outrageous is though that, for years (between 2009 and 2016), Taiwan was allowed to attend the WHO annual meetings as an observer; but since the current WHO Director-General assumed office, Taiwan was refused attendance at any WHO assembly or meeting.
With particular regard to the recent coronavirus crisis, this actually meant that 23.000.000 Taiwanese people were left behind to face a deadly pandemic alone. Yet, despite being shut out of WHO, Taiwan has amazingly succeeded in containing the coronavirus. In point of fact, Taiwan, under the astute leadership of President Tsai Ing-wen, is the only country in the world, with the exception of the Republic of Korea (i.e., South Korea), that succeeded in effectively tackling the latest coronavirus crisis – thus gaining universal acknowledge and admiration (see, i.a., Jaron Lanier and E. Glen Weyl, “Taiwan’s initial success against the novel coronavirus is a model for the rest of the world”, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Current Issue [May-June 2020]). Even as it faces a second wave of infections, Taiwan is helping other countries—and bolstering its soft power in the process (see, i.a., Nick Aspinwall, “Taiwan is exporting its coronavirus successes to the world”, FOREIGN POLICY, April 2020).
In the meantime, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending American funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) “while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The WHO claims to “courageously and selflessly defend everyone’s right to health” with “independent” decisions that are “fair, transparent and timely.” Yet as the U.S. President pointed out, “the reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet, and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” He added that “the WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable.”
Whether our mainstream, leftist media and intelligentsia likes it or not, President Trump is completely right: while the United States pours nearly $500 million a year into WHO health programs, Beijing has captured the leadership of the WHO; and so Ethiopia’s former foreign minister praises China’s coronavirus response and parrots China’s foreign policy agenda now that he is Director-General of the WHO. With the WHO now effectively operating as a propaganda tool of the Communist Party of China, why should the United States continue to fund it?
It goes without saying that Mr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus owes Taiwan and its people an apology. Moreover, the very least Mr. Tedros should do right now is to stand up against Beijing’s blackmail strategy and finally give up the shameful practice of exclusion of Taiwan and its 23.000.000 people from WHO.
*Dr. Ilias Iliopoulos has been the Professor of History and Geopolitics of Sea Power at the Hellenic Naval War College for eleven years; he is currently teaching at the Department of Turkish and Asian Studies of the University of Athens.