FP News
After initial denials and cover-ups, China successfully contained the
COVID-19 outbreak—but not before it had exported many cases to the rest
of the world. Today, despite the falsehoods it initially passed on,
which played a critical role in delaying global response, it’s trying to
leverage its reputed success story into a stronger position on
international health bodies.
Most critically, Beijing succeeded from the start in steering the
World Health Organization (WHO), which both receives funding from China
and is dependent on the regime of the Communist Party on many levels.
Its international experts didn’t get access to the country until
Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping at the end
of January. Before then, WHO was uncritically repeating information from
the Chinese authorities, ignoring warnings from Taiwanese
doctors—unrepresented in WHO, which is a United Nations body—and
reluctant to declare a “public health emergency of international
concern,” denying after a meeting Jan. 22 that there was any need to do
so."
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