J Michael Waller / Center for Security Policy / March 19, 2020 – The World Health Organization is one of the top multinational authorities on fighting the coronavirus, but it has damaged its credibility by acting like a propagandist for the Chinese Communist Party.
Years ago, WHO bowed to CCP pressure and had the Republic of China on Taiwan expelled from the organization. So did most other world bodies, so this is no surprise. WHO is an agency of the United Nations.
With regard to the Wuhan-originated strain of the coronavirus, though, WHO has literally become a propaganda vehicle for Xi Jinping. Let’s have a look:
- January 14, 2020: WHO cited CCP officials as authoritatively finding “no evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the virus. The World Health Organization sent out a message on Twitter – without questioning the credibility of the source, that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”
- January 29: Meeting with Xi Jinping, the head of the World Health Organization praised the Chinese Communist Party leadership for its ‘seriousness’ and ‘transparency.’
- Xi’s image was tottering at the time. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus went to Beijing, met with Xi, and said, “We appreciate the seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated. . . .”
- February 13: WHO leader Tedros defended his praise for China’s Communist government and Xi Jinping in particular, and questioned his critics.
- “The head of the World Health Organisation defended his earlier praise of China’s response to the deadly coronavirus epidemic on Wednesday, questioning critics who disputed President Xi Jinping’s leadership,” the South China Morning Post reported.
- At a two-day scientific conference in Geneva to discuss combating the virus, the WHO director praised Xi Jinping’s “political commitment” and “political leadership,” during the crisis and said, “Don’t you appreciate that kind of leadership?”
- “Fending off criticism that he made the appreciative remarks just to save China ‘face,’ Tedros insisted that China ‘doesn’t need to be asked to be praised’ for its efforts to contain the spread of the virus,” according to SCMP.
- “‘China has done many good things to slow down the virus,’ Tedros said. ‘The whole world can judge. There is no spinning here.’”
- According to the SCMP, “Tedros added that his comments were not merely personal, but that they represented the view of the WHO.”
- Tedros said a British board member of WHO lauded Xi’s decision to quarantine Wuhan as “heroic.”
- February 15: WHO leader Tedros praised the CCP leadership for buying the world more time, at a terrible cost to China itself.
- Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, WHO Director General Tedros said that the Chinese government appears “to have bought the world time, even though those steps have come at greater cost to China itself. But it’s slowing the spread to the rest of the world.”
- “We’re concerned about the levels of rumours and misinformation that are hampering the response,” Tedros said at the Munich conference, with his remarks apparently aimed at critics outside China, and none directed at the Chinese leadership itself.
- February 24: WHO instructed professionals not to say Wuhan or Chinese Virus and to engage social influencers to ‘create a movement.’ As the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department issued directives to its foreign diplomats never to associate the virus with Wuhan or China, the World Health Organization instructed health care professionals worldwide NOT to say “Wuhan Virus” or “Chinese Virus.”
- The virus, declared WHO, shall be known as COVID-19.
- The first instruction in the five-page document titled “Social Stigma associated with COVID-19” was “Don’t attach locations or ethnicity to the disease, this is not a ‘Wuhan Virus,’ ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Asian Virus.’” (see illustration)
- WHO instructed medical professionals to engage “social influencers such as religious leaders” and “respected celebrities” to amplify messages that reduce stigma, including not to say Wuhan Virus or Corona Virus.
- WHO urged medical professionals to take “a number of initiatives to address stigma and stereotyping,” saying that “It is key to link up to these activities to create a movement. . . .”
- WHO’s instructions read more like a Saul Alinsky community organizing manual than professional guidelines for medical professionals.
- March 19: CCP propaganda outlet uses WHO to defend its position & attack US.
- “Washington’s behavior of passing the buck to China is political hooliganism,” Global Times says. “Among world leaders, only Trump and politicians like Pompeo are blathering on about ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Wuhan virus,’ blaming China for their own incompetence in the pandemic fight. The WHO [World Health Organization] has explicitly opposed linking the virus to specific countries and regions.”
- Invoking WHO to praise PRC’s ‘huge sacrifices’ to save the world. “China has made huge sacrifices to bring the pandemic under control within its borders. It has gained time for the world. This is the official recognition of WHO, and it has hardly been disputed across the globe other than the US,” Global Times says.
- March 19: WHO is called out for helping Xi Jinping avoid culpability.
- “In naming the disease COVID-19, the World Health Organization specifically avoided mentioning Wuhan,” the Brookings Institution’s Shadi Hamid writes in The Atlantic. “Yet in de-emphasizing where the epidemic began (something China has been aggressively pushing for), we run the risk of obscuring Beijing’s role in letting the disease spread beyond its borders. China has a history of mishandling outbreaks. . . .”
The World Health Organization has damaged its reputation by handling the coronavirus/COVID-19/China Virus in lockstep with the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department.
WHO has politicized the pandemic to appease Xi Jinping and his regime. It no longer deserves the public trust.