Taiwan protests WHO leader's accusations of racist campaign
Taiwan's foreign ministry on Thursday strongly protested accusations from the top of the World Health Organization that it condoned racist personal attacks on him that he alleged were from the self-governing island democracy.
The ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction and a higher amount of regret, and raised the most solemn protest." Taiwan is a "mature, highly advanced nation and may never instigate personal attacks on the director-general of the WHO, significantly less express racist sentiments," the statement said.
Taiwan's 23 million persons have themselves been "severely discriminated against" by the politics of the international health system and "condemn all types of discrimination and injustice," the statement said.
On Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Taiwan's foreign ministry of being associated with a months-long campaign against him amid the COVID-19 pandemic. At a press briefing, Tedros said that because the emergence of the novel coronavirus, he has been personally attacked, including acquiring sometimes, death threats and racist abuse.
"This attack originated from Taiwan," said Tedros, who's a former Ethiopian health insurance and foreign minister and the WHO's first African leader.
He said Taiwanese diplomats were alert to the attacks but didn't dissociate themselves from their website. "They even started criticizing me in the center of those insults and slurs," Tedros said. "I say it today because it's enough." The foundation of his allegations were unclear.
Tedros was elected with the strong support of China, among five everlasting veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council and which claims Taiwan as its territory. He has firmly backed Beijing's claims to have already been open and transparent about the outbreak, despite strong evidence that it suppressed early reports on infections, while echoing its criticisms of the U.S.
At China's insistence, Taiwan has been barred from the U.N. and the WHO and even stripped of its observer status at the gross annual World Health Assembly. As well, it has probably the most robust public health systems on the globe, and has won praise because of its handling of the virus outbreak.
Despite its close proximity to China and the frequency of travel between the sides, Taiwan has reported just 379 cases and five deaths.
U.S. and Taiwanese officials met online last month to go over ways of increasing the island's participation on the globe health system, sparking fury from Beijing, which opposes all official contacts between Washington and Taipei.
Also at Wednesday's briefing, Tedros sought to rise above sharp criticism and threats of funding cuts from President Donald Trump over the WHO's response to the outbreak.
The vocal defense came a day after Trump blasted the agency to be "China-centric" and alleging that it had "criticized" his ban of travel from China as the COVID-19 outbreak was spreading from metropolis of Wuhan.
In a further touch upon Tedros' remarks, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tweeted that the island agreed along with his assertion that there is, "No need to use COVID to score political points."
"We agree! Yet without evidence, #Taiwan is accused of orchestrating personal attacks. This claim is baseless, without merit & further marginalizes the good work in which the @WHO is engaged worldwide," Wu tweeted.
Tedros had not seemed to have accused the Taiwanese government of being directly behind the attacks, but simply of condoning them.
