Apr 6, 2020 07:18 AM
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/...us-cost-us
INTRO: As the Japanese government counted the cost of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed to next year, Taro Aso, the country’s deputy prime minister, took out his frustration on the World Health Organisation (WHO). Preparation for a pandemic of exactly this nature had long been the WHO’s top priority. So why did it fail the test so badly when the moment came?
Aso’s answer was that the WHO had grown far too close to China. Indeed, he suggested, it should change its name to the Chinese Health Organisation. Not only was the previous WHO director-general, Margaret Chan, a Chinese national but her successor, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the former Ethiopian health minister, was China’s candidate. The allegation was serious: “Early on, if the WHO had not insisted to the world that China had no pneumonia epidemic, then everybody would have taken precautions,” he said on 28 March. Although it was alerted in late December that a new disease had appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the WHO continued to repeat Beijing’s assurances that there was nothing much to worry about.
The WHO had been warned of the problem in Wuhan from a reliable but awkward source. In common with most international organisations, at China’s insistence the WHO does not include Taiwan as an independent member. That is why those looking for evidence of Taiwan’s performance in the struggle against Covid-19 will search in vain on the WHO website. Yet, as Aso also noted, Taiwan can claim to be a “world leader” in responding to the virus and its impressive record should be known. By screening people arriving on flights from China and tracing the contacts of all known cases, this island country of some 24 million people has so far limited the number of cases to 363, with five deaths.
But this is not a story that the WHO can tell. There was an embarrassing moment in late March, when Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO adviser, was unable to respond to a question by a Hong Kong-based journalist about Taiwan because he dared not acknowledge its existence as a distinct political entity. This is a familiar problem for international bureaucrats. The particular embarrassment in this instance was that Taiwan had warned the WHO of trouble in Wuhan in late December, and particularly about the possibility of human-to-human transmission. This was despite the efforts being made by local Communist Party officials to suppress the news and warn those physicians talking about it openly to stop spreading such damaging rumours. But by the start of this year, the news was emerging in a variety of ways, and not only through Taiwan.
The WHO did not respond to Taiwan’s warning and did not pass it on to others. Instead it stayed close to China’s official line... (MORE)
INTRO: As the Japanese government counted the cost of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics being postponed to next year, Taro Aso, the country’s deputy prime minister, took out his frustration on the World Health Organisation (WHO). Preparation for a pandemic of exactly this nature had long been the WHO’s top priority. So why did it fail the test so badly when the moment came?
Aso’s answer was that the WHO had grown far too close to China. Indeed, he suggested, it should change its name to the Chinese Health Organisation. Not only was the previous WHO director-general, Margaret Chan, a Chinese national but her successor, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the former Ethiopian health minister, was China’s candidate. The allegation was serious: “Early on, if the WHO had not insisted to the world that China had no pneumonia epidemic, then everybody would have taken precautions,” he said on 28 March. Although it was alerted in late December that a new disease had appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the WHO continued to repeat Beijing’s assurances that there was nothing much to worry about.
The WHO had been warned of the problem in Wuhan from a reliable but awkward source. In common with most international organisations, at China’s insistence the WHO does not include Taiwan as an independent member. That is why those looking for evidence of Taiwan’s performance in the struggle against Covid-19 will search in vain on the WHO website. Yet, as Aso also noted, Taiwan can claim to be a “world leader” in responding to the virus and its impressive record should be known. By screening people arriving on flights from China and tracing the contacts of all known cases, this island country of some 24 million people has so far limited the number of cases to 363, with five deaths.
But this is not a story that the WHO can tell. There was an embarrassing moment in late March, when Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO adviser, was unable to respond to a question by a Hong Kong-based journalist about Taiwan because he dared not acknowledge its existence as a distinct political entity. This is a familiar problem for international bureaucrats. The particular embarrassment in this instance was that Taiwan had warned the WHO of trouble in Wuhan in late December, and particularly about the possibility of human-to-human transmission. This was despite the efforts being made by local Communist Party officials to suppress the news and warn those physicians talking about it openly to stop spreading such damaging rumours. But by the start of this year, the news was emerging in a variety of ways, and not only through Taiwan.
The WHO did not respond to Taiwan’s warning and did not pass it on to others. Instead it stayed close to China’s official line... (MORE)
