China facing anger at key WHO forum Australia
At the first meeting of the World Health Organisation’s governing body since Covid-19 stormed the globe, China is set to be challenged on two of its most sensitive issues: The Communist Party’s initial handling of the virus and the status of Taiwan’s participation.
While the US has launched a daily barrage of attacks on China, including suggesting the virus escaped from a laboratory in the central city of Wuhan, the European Union and Australia are set to play a key role pushing for a probe into the virus’s origin when the World Health Assembly – the WHO’s decisionmaking body – gathers today for an annual meeting in Geneva.
A US-backed bloc is also pushing for Taiwan, whose handling of the virus has been a rare success story, to attend the meeting as an observer. The move – aimed at strengthening Taiwan’s official and unofficial diplomatic relationships – has angered China, which views the island as a province and has long sought to isolate it on the world stage.
The showdown reflects a broader geopolitical struggle pitting the US and its allies against China, whose authoritarian system has come under scrutiny in the wake of a pandemic that has killed about 300,000 people and devastated the global economy. The US has cut funds for the WHO, claiming bias towards China, and even suggested setting up an alternative body.
Yet for all the noise, most analysts expect China to command support from a large swathe of the nearly 200 countries taking part in the assembly that need good relations with the world’s second-biggest economy to shore up domestic growth.
And any effort to replace the WHO is also unlikely to gain traction.
‘‘As much as the WHO has struggled and been the subject of criticism in this crisis, any replacement would look remarkably similar to what we have today,’’ said Natasha Kassam, a former Australian diplomat in China who is now a research fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. ‘‘It is hard to imagine an effective global health institution that excluded China, and it’s hard to imagine the United States making Taiwan’s participation a red line.’’
Still, the anger in some parts of the world over China’s response to the pandemic is still fresh, and will likely play out this week. Apart from an initial coverup, the world has become increasingly upset with China’s heavyhanded response to any criticism.
Australia in particular has felt the heat from Beijing, which threatened a boycott of its goods and also suspended meat imports from four processing plants for ‘‘technical’’ reasons. The government in Canberra called the boycott threats ‘‘economic coercion’’ and hasn’t backed down on its calls for a virus probe.
While the EU was still working out the wording of the proposal in the runup to the assembly, the European Commission has said a draft resolution envisaged calling for ‘‘an independent review on lessons learned from the international health response to the coronavirus.’’
The building acrimony has also made more countries willing to pressure China on Taiwan, which is a red line for authorities in Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s government in Taipei has made a vocal pitch to be included in the proceedings this week, saying it needs access to firsthand information about the spread of the disease.