v

President Donald Trump has decided to halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, accusing it of kowtowing to China in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic by applauding the Chinese government’s "transparency” and uncritically accepting Beijing’s assertions, such as that the virus was not transmissible between humans. The WHO, Trump said, has become "very China-centric.”To get more China news, you can visit shine news official website.

It might be easy to dismiss this move as trademark Trumpian blame deflection or saber-rattling or shortsighted isolationism. But for people who’ve been watching China’s growing activism in the United Nations closely, the WHO’s deference to China is no surprise. In fact, it’s just the exposed tip of a dangerous iceberg — and Trump is careening straight toward it.

Beijing’s leverage over the WHO cannot be understood independently of a much longer and broader campaign, one that aims to bend the arc of global governance toward a more illiberal orientation that privileges the interests of authoritarian actors.

Over the past several years, Beijing has systematically positioned Chinese nationals at the head of a wide range of U.N. agencies. Since 2019, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency has been led by Qu Dongyu, formerly China’s vice minister of agriculture. This followed the 2018 reinstatement of Zhao Houlin, who began his career in China’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, for a second four-year term as the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, a crucial body that sets technical standards for communications networks; Zhao has used his position to advance Huawei’s standing as a vendor of 5G telecommunications equipment worldwide. The previous year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Liu Zhenmin, formerly China’s vice minister for foreign affairs, to a key position in the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs — a body tasked with advancing the U.N.’s hallmark program to promote development, combat climate change and reduce inequality. Even the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N. agency that regulates global air travel headed by Fang Liu, a Chinese national, has been accused of keeping Taiwan out of the loop on Covid-19 protocols.
In part this dominance of Chinese nationals in key U.N. agencies reflects Beijing’s savvy diplomatic maneuvering as a rising power, and its position as the world’s second-largest economy.

But it’s also possible because of a void left by the United States, which under Trump has repudiated its previous leadership role in international organizations. As Beijing tries to retool the U.N. and other international institutions to its advantage, it is leaving in its wake a global system that has been knocked off balance by the absence of the steadying leadership of the United States. Even amid a global pandemic, Washington continues to send equivocal signals about its commitment to multilateralism.

In this context, Trump’s decision to defund WHO isn’t just petty or reactive—it literally plays into China’s hands. If the U.S. downgrades its participation in the WHO and other U.N. organizations, it will cede even more ground, and influence, to the Chinese—which is what they want.

So Americans who are now blaming the WHO for failing to do a better job against Covid-19 have an important question to answer—if you want international organizations to perform to U.S. standards and reflect U.S. values, how much global leadership are you ready to take back on?

China’s gambit to leverage Covid-19 to consolidate its international standing need not go unchallenged. Indeed, as the pandemic lays waste to all assumptions of how the U.N. should work, there might not be a better window of opportunity for Washington to double down on its commitment to a brand of global leadership that is committed to transparency, freedom and the protection of universal human rights.

President Donald Trump has decided to halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, accusing it of kowtowing to China in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic by applauding the Chinese government’s "transparency” and uncritically accepting Beijing’s assertions, such as that the virus was not transmissible between humans. The WHO, Trump said, has become "very China-centric.”To get more China news, you can visit shine news official website.

It might be easy to dismiss this move as trademark Trumpian blame deflection or saber-rattling or shortsighted isolationism. But for people who’ve been watching China’s growing activism in the United Nations closely, the WHO’s deference to China is no surprise. In fact, it’s just the exposed tip of a dangerous iceberg — and Trump is careening straight toward it.

Beijing’s leverage over the WHO cannot be understood independently of a much longer and broader campaign, one that aims to bend the arc of global governance toward a more illiberal orientation that privileges the interests of authoritarian actors.

Over the past several years, Beijing has systematically positioned Chinese nationals at the head of a wide range of U.N. agencies. Since 2019, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency has been led by Qu Dongyu, formerly China’s vice minister of agriculture. This followed the 2018 reinstatement of Zhao Houlin, who began his career in China’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, for a second four-year term as the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, a crucial body that sets technical standards for communications networks; Zhao has used his position to advance Huawei’s standing as a vendor of 5G telecommunications equipment worldwide. The previous year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Liu Zhenmin, formerly China’s vice minister for foreign affairs, to a key position in the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs — a body tasked with advancing the U.N.’s hallmark program to promote development, combat climate change and reduce inequality. Even the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N. agency that regulates global air travel headed by Fang Liu, a Chinese national, has been accused of keeping Taiwan out of the loop on Covid-19 protocols.
In part this dominance of Chinese nationals in key U.N. agencies reflects Beijing’s savvy diplomatic maneuvering as a rising power, and its position as the world’s second-largest economy.

But it’s also possible because of a void left by the United States, which under Trump has repudiated its previous leadership role in international organizations. As Beijing tries to retool the U.N. and other international institutions to its advantage, it is leaving in its wake a global system that has been knocked off balance by the absence of the steadying leadership of the United States. Even amid a global pandemic, Washington continues to send equivocal signals about its commitment to multilateralism.

In this context, Trump’s decision to defund WHO isn’t just petty or reactive—it literally plays into China’s hands. If the U.S. downgrades its participation in the WHO and other U.N. organizations, it will cede even more ground, and influence, to the Chinese—which is what they want.

So Americans who are now blaming the WHO for failing to do a better job against Covid-19 have an important question to answer—if you want international organizations to perform to U.S. standards and reflect U.S. values, how much global leadership are you ready to take back on?

China’s gambit to leverage Covid-19 to consolidate its international standing need not go unchallenged. Indeed, as the pandemic lays waste to all assumptions of how the U.N. should work, there might not be a better window of opportunity for Washington to double down on its commitment to a brand of global leadership that is committed to transparency, freedom and the protection of universal human rights.

Posted by: shinenewstop at 07:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1239 words, total size 9 kb.