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April 9, 2020

As WHO's leader makes threats about body bags, Trump pulls funds

By Andrea Widburg

From the beginning, the World Health Organization has been relaying Chinese Communist Party propaganda about COVID-19.  Trump has rightly pointed to the way WHO's statements invariably echo the Chinese party line.  With America threatening to pull WHO funds, the WHO's director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has accused Trump of politicizing the WHO and risking mass death.  As an added sop to China, he is also accusing Taiwan of racism.

Ghebreyesus's malfeasance goes back to early January, after China had already been covering up COVID-19 for at least a month.  The WHO had consistently parroted Chinese propaganda from that time forward.  This timeline is helpful in explaining the China-WHO nexus.

On Tuesday, Ghebreyesus tried to defend himself by retweeting a January 30 statement from the WHO, saying, "I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of #2019nCoV."

However, reading the statement in the context of the entire tweet thread (which summarizes a press conference), one sees that Ghebreyesus was still carrying water for China.  He praised China for its efforts "to protect their own people and the people of the world" and lauded China's speed in dealing with the virus and its "commitment to transparency and supporting other countries."

The WHO is also trying to protect China from Taiwan's longstanding assertion that it is the legitimate government of the Chinese nation.  When an interviewer from RTHK, a Hong Kong news outlet, spoke to Bruce Aylward, a physician and senior adviser to Ghebreyesus, she asked Aylward whether Taiwan would be admitted to the WHO.  Aylward ran away rather than answer the question:

On Wednesday, Ghebreyesus launched a direct attack at Taiwan, accusing it of making racist statements about Africa and COVID-19:

"Three months ago, this attack came from Taiwan. We need to be honest. I will be straight today. From Taiwan," he said. "And 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."

The Chinese couldn't ask for more.

But what accounts for Ghebreyesus's pro-Chinese bias?  After all, America, not China, is the WHO's single largest financial supporter.

It turns out that while America supports the entity, China buys off the individuals, especially fellow Marxists like Ghebreyesus:

China worked "tirelessly behind the scenes" in lobbing [sic] to ensure the election of Tedros, who previously served in the government of the Marxist and violently repressive Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. This gruesome movement was responsible for gross human right abuses, such as torture, repression, and electoral fraud. During his tenure as health minister, Tedros was most known to have covered up three cholera outbreaks.

So why did China push so hard for Tedros? The ex-revolutionary's tenure is merely part of a broader CCP strategy to take over international organizations to "reshape the international system to accommodate its political and economic interests…In service of this strategy, [China] has consistently sought to trade financial incentives for votes, offering bribes and cancelling debt for countries that support them."

Trump and the Republicans, thankfully, are pushing back.  On Tuesday, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) acted:

Also on Tuesday, Trump announced that his administration will hold any money normally payable to WHO:

When you're a Marxist like Ghebreyesus, money talks.  Faced with losing the organization's biggest economic supporter, Ghebreyesus, who has politicized the virus since the first day, issued Trump a stern warning:

If Trump doesn't lay off, Ghebreyesus not so subtly implied, there will be mass death: "If you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it."  Or put another way, give me your money, or people will die, and I'll make sure to blame you.

Ghebreyesus is about to learn that you don't talk tough to Trump unless you want a world of hurt rained down upon you.  The likelihood of Trump allowing the Marxist head of a U.N.-affiliated Chinese propaganda organization to talk smack to him is pretty darn small.  It remains to be seen, too, how Taiwan handles Ghebreyesus's decision to carry water for China's efforts to marginalize it.

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