Explainer: Why Cardinal Zen is
criticising the WHO
Thomas
Caddick
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, has
raised questions about the independence of the World Health Organization after
a senior WHO official refused to take questions on Taiwan’s response to the
coronavirus pandemic.
In a video interview last week with Hong Kong broadcaster
RTHK, Bruce Aylward, the WHO’s lead advisor to China, declined to comment on
Taiwan’s Covid-19 measures and its current lack of WHO member status. At one
point, Dr Aylward even appeared to hang up on his interviewer, Yvonne Tong, in
response to the line of questioning. When the reporter called Aylward back to
allow him to speak about the situation in Taiwan, the Canadian epidemiologist
praised public health efforts “across all the different areas of China” but
made no mention of Taiwan.
Taiwan wishes to be considered an independent sovereign
state, a status rejected by the People’s Republic of China, which considers it
a “renegade province” of China. Consequently, China has demanded that
international organizations such as the UN and WHO dismiss Taiwan’s requests
for membership, and it has withheld diplomatic relations from the 14 countries
that still officially recognise Taiwan. Sino-Vatican relations have been
centred exclusively in Taiwan ever since the Chinese Communist regime banished
the Holy See’s diplomatic mission in 1951. The Holy See’s 2018 “provisional
agreement” with the Chinese government has been interpreted as a
potential “prelude” to
a breaking of ties with Taiwan.
Cardinal Zen has been a prominent critic of the Chinese
government and its 2018 agreement with the Vatican. On Twitter, he criticised
the WHO official for shying away from such questioning and said that it made
trust in the organization impossible.
The
controversy over the interview comes amid mounting criticism of the WHO’s
relationship with China. The organization praised China’s “speed in identifying
the virus and openness to sharing information”. However, Professor John
Mackenzie, a WHO expert from Curtin University in Australia, branded the
country’s early response as “reprehensible”.
China’s
efforts to build links with the current WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, through speaking invitations and increased WHO contributions, have
caused concern amongst some health experts. This has coincided with the WHO’s
renewed support for the “one-China principle”, which rejects Taiwanese
independence, and a shift away from the critical stance toward China that the
WHO has adopted in the past.
In the
2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the then Director-General, Gro Harlem Brundtland,
condemned China’s slow response and lack of transparency, and begged that the
“next time something strange and new comes anywhere in the world let us come in
as quickly as possible”. Even during the SARS epidemic, however, the WHO was
criticised for having “shut out” Taiwan from its scientific investigations.
Taiwan was later granted temporary observer status between 2008 and 2016 under
the name “Chinese Taipei”.
The current
WHO leadership has offered no such invitation, which has limited Taiwan’s
access to shared scientific data. The Taiwanese authorities have subsequently
reiterated their criticisms of the WHO’s “unreasonable restrictions” on
information sharing during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Taiwan has
itself received widespread scientific support for its current handling of the
crisis, with just 339 recorded cases of the virus and 5 deaths to date as a
result of the firm public health measures overseen by Vice-President Chen
Chien-jen, a prominent Catholic epidemiologist.
The World
Health Organization issued a statement in response to the controversy, stating
that they had been working with Taiwanese health experts to facilitate an
effective response to the outbreak there and insisting that “Taiwanese
membership in WHO is up to WHO Member States, not WHO.”
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