WHO adopts draft resolution
US, Australia and Taiwan island ‘failed to besiege’ mainland
A resolution on identifying the zoonotic source of the novel coronavirus and evaluating the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 response have been agreed by all the member states, including China, the US and Australia, at the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting on Tuesday.
A few days ago, the WHA meeting was widely considered as one with rising tensions and divisions as more countries would target China and the WHO, seeking Beijing’s culpability over the coronavirus outbreak – a malicious political attempt led by countries like the US and Australia.
However, the two-day meeting closed with the majority of countries agreeing on a resolution co-sponsored by China, showing a global consensus being reached on joint efforts in fighting the COVID-19 disease and evaluating WHO’s response in an comprehensive and objective way, experts said.
They noted that such consensus also rejected political bias led by some Western politicians, and major proposals highlighted in the resolution are in line with the consistent position of the Chinese side, which some Chinese analysts said could be seen as a diplomatic victory for Beijing.
The US, Australia and the island of Taiwan have become the biggest losers at this year’s WHA meeting, as they were either isolated or abandoned by the global community for continuing to politicize the pandemic and diverting the joint efforts in fighting this battle, some Chinese experts said.
The adoption of the resolution also sent a clear message to the world that countries are sharing the consensus of taking the anti-epidemic battle as the top priority, recognizing the leading role the WHO has played, and evaluating the WHO’s COVID-19 should be impartial, justified and led by scientists and professionals.
Three losers
In a complete and sharp contrast to China, which offered a series of proposals at the WHA meeting, including providing $2 billion over two years to help this battle, making China’s COVID-19 vaccines global public goods when available and working with G20 members, the US has become the biggest loser for being isolated and marginalized, reflecting its failure in global governance, some Chinese analysts said, noting that such incompetence was amplified after it failed to besiege China at the WHO with the help of two of its biggest pawns – Australia and the island of Taiwan.
Contrary to China’s commitment to the global anti-epidemic fight, US President Donald Trump escalated his “blame game” toward China and the WHO – an old-fashioned tactic used by US politicians over the past few months in diverting public attention on their mishandling of the unprecedented public health crisis in the US.
Trump tweeted a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday, in which he criticized the organization’s “dependence” on China in its decisionmaking process and COVID-19 response. Trump also wrote in the letter that if the WHO “does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days,” he will make the temporary freeze of US funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider its membership of the organization.
Besides furious attacks, the US government has been trying to bring the matter of Taiwan into the WHA to provoke the Chinese mainland, which, however, was doomed to fail no matter how hard some US lawmakers and officials like US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus tried to support the island and challenge the universally accepted one-China principle.
The attempt to push for proposals related to Taiwan at the WHA by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the island of Taiwan once again failed the moment the WHA announced it would not discuss such proposals. Compared to previous years, Ms Keva Bain from the Bahamas, president of this year’s WHA, was more “decisive and clear” about not discussing Taiwan-related proposals, experts said.
Chinese mainland analysts said that the separatist DPP in Taiwan thought that it has found the “big brother” – the Trump administration – and it has paid a huge amount of money to flatter the US. But “big brother” is not as reliable as they have thought, since all efforts they paid to challenge the one-China principle in the
WHA failed, as always.
The third loser was Australia, which has been actively pushing for a so-called independent inquiry into the origins of the crisis in recent days, aimed at China. Australia’s act was widely believed to be instigated by Washington. Some Australian politicians, including Australia’s foreign minister Marise Payne, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, have been in a bullish mood, as some media reports said, in criticizing China for its lack of transparency, and vowed to stand up for their values.
Failed attempts
Some Australian media outlets see this as a move aimed at further pressuring China and seeking to hold Beijing accountable for the outbreak, calling on Beijing to face overwhelming global pressure at the WHA meeting.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the mainland also shared epidemic-related information and technologies with Taiwan 155 times as of Monday, and 16 groups of 24 experts from Taiwan have taken part in technical activities organized by the WHO since 2019.
While all parties have reached consensus on a draft resolution after consultations with member states, the Chinese side called for initiating a review of the WHO-coordinated COVID-19 response at the appropriate moment with an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation process to review experiences gained and lessons learned, which is also a routine practice for the WHO. The WHO previously conducted a post-epidemic evaluation of the H1N1 response and Ebola.