Taiwan denies smear claim by WHO chief

Taiwan hit back Thursday after the chief of the World Health Organization accused the island’s government of participating in a racist campaign to smear and intimidate him.

The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said the allegations by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were groundless and demanded an apology from the United Nations official a day after he told reporters in Geneva that Taiwan has been abetting a campaign of racist slurs and death threats against him for the past three months.

Tedros, a former Ethiopian health and foreign minister, has faced growing criticism of his handling of the covid-19 outbreak since January, when the U.N. body repeatedly backed positions espoused by the Chinese government and praised Beijing’s epidemic response.

In the weeks since, Chinese dissidents, anti-Beijing activists and people in Hong Kong and Taiwan have flooded social media with posts that accuse Tedros of lying on behalf of China’s government, as well as cartoons that show the director general blinded by the Chinese Communist Party.

“Taiwan, the Foreign Ministry also, they know the campaign. They didn’t disassociate themselves. They even started criticizing me in the middle of all that insult and slur, but I didn’t care,” Tedros said Wednesday in an outburst.

The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said Thursday it “in no way encouraged” any personal attacks and condemned “any form of discrimination.”

But the WHO has faced legitimate criticism and anger over its conduct in the past three months, the ministry countered.

“There have been questions about its handling of the situation,” the Foreign Ministry said. “In democratic societies, people should be able to express these opinions freely.”

Taiwanese officials last month accused the WHO of ignoring warnings submitted by the island as early as December about a potential coronavirus outbreak — information that was never publicized to the WHO’s member nations because the island is locked out of the organization under a policy that does not recognize Taiwanese statehood.

China considers the self-governed island of 23 million people to be its territory and does not permit countries, international organizations and multinational corporations to formally recognize Taiwan if they wish to enjoy diplomatic or commercial ties with mainland China.

Still, in a Facebook post on Thursday, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen invited Tedros to visit.

“For years, we have been excluded from international organizations, and we know better than anyone else what it feels like to be discriminated against and isolated,” Tsai wrote. “I want to take this opportunity to invite Director General Tedros to visit Taiwan and experience for himself how committed the Taiwanese people are to engaging with and contributing to the world, even in the face of discrimination and isolation.”

The recriminations between Taiwan, a U.S. ally, and the WHO, which has been criticized as being increasingly China-friendly, are playing out against the backdrop of U.S.-China tensions.

American officials have homed in on the question of China’s influence at the WHO. The issue took center stage this week after President Donald Trump threatened to “put a very powerful hold” on U.S. contributions to the U.N. agency’s $6 billion biennial budget because he believed the agency to be too “China-centric.”

In a radio interview this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the WHO “hasn’t lived up to its billing,” but he dismissed the suggestion that Washington should seek a change in the organization’s leadership.

Beyond the Trump administration, some international experts, including current WHO advisers, have publicly questioned whether the agency hewed too closely to the Chinese government’s positions, particularly as the outbreak came into view during the crucial month of January.