President Biden stopped America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization on his first day in office. The premise of his decision is that reforming international institutions from within is more effective than letting go or withholding funds, and this theory will be tested quickly.
“China has full control over the World Health Organization,” Donald Trump said last year when he announced that the United States would leave. This was a typical hyperbole, but it had a point. WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus supported China’s response to the virus – “very impressive and beyond words” – while Beijing destroyed evidence of the virus, neutralized whistleblowers and spread conspiracy theories.
WHO officials thought privately to speak, but calculated that the Chinese Communist Party would be even less cooperative if it publicly criticized. The agency’s reluctance did not do much. A team of WHO experts went to Beijing to study the origins of the virus in February 2020 – when their chances of finding out how it was transferred to humans from animals were significantly better than today – but the Chinese government prevented them.
Negotiations with Beijing continued until 2020. This month, Dr. Tedros finally gathered the spiritless complaint that he was “very disappointed” by the delays. The Chinese foreign ministry said it welcomed the presence of investigators shortly before they began arriving in recent days. Take this as seriously as OJ Simpson’s oath to make finding his ex-wife’s killer “my main purpose in life.”
Media reports say Beijing has pushed the WHO to delegate initial critical investigative work to Chinese scientists. At best, the WHO team will obtain incomplete data, as research on the origins of Covid-19 cannot be published in China without the approval of the Communist Party. The Chinese government also approved the members of the WHO mission and the agenda.