File Photo: WHO

Blocking a UN resolution for a global cease-fire over reference to the World Health Organization (WHO) is just another typical move by the US to weaken global efforts in fighting the coronavirus pandemic as the organization has been Washington's next key target in its blame games against Beijing which aim to disguise the Trump administration's massive failures in handling the pandemic. 

Such anti-China and anti-WHO campaigns choreographed by American leaders won't conceal the chaotic management that has led the US to be the worst-hit by the disease globally, analysts and officials said, calling for global solidarity in combating the pandemic as political divides have been weighing on the matters of lives and deaths. 

The US rejected any reference to the WHO when it came to a text of the resolution that a 15-member council has been trying to reach an agreement on a cease-fire in conflicts around the world to concentrate on the pandemic, Reuters reported on Sunday. 

The US' move of stymieing the passage of the resolution on Friday was also seen as an attack at an international health agency, which has been a forerunner in calling for global solidarity and collaboration in fighting the pandemic. It was a deliberate attempt to downplay the role of the WHO after the Trump administration decided to halt funding to it.  

While some netizens on Twitter slammed the US move as it acted against international peace and security, such moves are indeed in line with the hostile stance of the White House toward the WHO as the US President Donald Trump has been accusing the organization of being China-centric and fueling a disinformation campaign to disguise the failures of the US government amid the outbreak, particularly when the Trump administration's handling of COVID-19 has been totally disastrous, analysts said.  



Next key target of US attack

In reviewing Trump's daily routine in dealing with the pandemic, netizens and critics summarized it as "blaming everything from attacking CNN to Democrats to China and the WHO and so on." Meanwhile former US President Barack Obama also criticized the Trump administration's response to COVID-19, describing it as an absolute chaotic disaster, media reported on Sunday. 

"What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy -- that has become a stronger impulse in American life," the former president was quoted as saying in the reports. 

To conceal their own mistakes, the Trump administration used its two largest enemies to divert public dissatisfaction - China and the WHO, Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for US Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

"The administration has no interest in global governance since the beginning, particularly after Trump thinks that some international organizations might not serve American interests, he raises doubts, even heaps criticism upon them," he said. 

Trump announced on April 14 to halt funding to the WHO, accusing the organization of severely mismanaging and covering up the outbreak. Trump's move drew wide-range criticism from officials, medical professionals, key opinion influencers and geopolitical observers, as some health groups and charities in the US urged him to reverse the decision that hurt global efforts to contain the viral spread. 

Martin Jacques, who was a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, also slammed such a decision as "outrageous and grossly irresponsible," which prioritizes Trump's own electoral interests over the needs of Americans and people around the world, he told the Global Times in an earlier interview. 

Affecting 187 countries and regions with more than 4 million people, the COVID-19 pandemic gives rise to the importance of global solidarity as no country could deal with such an unprecedented public health crisis alone.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated during a recent press briefing that countries should come together to confront this common enemy. "At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the US joined forces to conquer a common enemy. They recognized that viruses do not respect nations or ideologies," Tedros was quoted as saying in media reports on Friday referring to a joint effort against smallpox , noting that the same solidarity, built on national unity, is needed now more than ever to defeat COVID-19. 

In contrary to China, which supports the WHO as a backer of multilateralism, the US has been escalating confrontation and leading anti-China rhetoric since the outbreak began, spreading a disinformation campaign about COVID-19, which was followed by some Western media and politicians.  

The WHO on Sunday refuted a report from media outlet Der Spiegel regarding the details of information-sharing on COVID-19 between China and the organization, slashing false reports that distract global efforts in fighting the pandemic as the report also contradicted the official timeline of the epidemic response that the Chinese government had earlier released.

The WHO comments came after the German newspaper published an article on Friday, citing the country's intelligence service, claiming that China urged the organization to delay global warnings following the outbreak and that Chinese President Xi Jinping requested via a phone call with Tedros on January 21 to ask him to withhold information on human-to-human transmission, claiming this caused the world a delay of four to six weeks in fighting COVID-19, the newspaper said. 

The WHO refuted the claims by saying that reports of a January 21 phone call between the WHO chief and President Xi were unfounded and untrue. They didn't speak on January 21 and have never spoken via phone. Such inaccurate reports distract & detract from the WHO's and global efforts to end COVID-19, said an official tweet from the WHO. 

China confirmed human-to-human transmission of the virus on January 20, the WHO added in a follow-up tweet. 

Some Twitter users also raised suspicions regarding the report as they believe the alleged cover-up makes no sense particularly when the Chinese government had already publicly revealed human-to-human transmission the day before. Also, there was no information relevant to such a call on the official timeline of China's COVID-19 response that the Chinese government released on April 6. 

"Groundless and false reports are also part of a disinformation campaign being waged against China by some Western media and politicians," Xin said, noting that such a campaign has been fueled by US-led anti-China sentiment and rhetoric which has been escalating in recent weeks as the pandemic continued worsening. 

The US attacked the WHO on its relationship with China, claiming that the organization is controlled and bribed by Beijing, which is however, a lie from Washington, according to a list of 24 lies and facts released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday. In 2018 and 2019, China was the third biggest donor to WHO's assessed contributions, after the US and Japan while the organization is composed of 194 member states. 

China began sharing information with the WHO and the international community starting from January 3 on a regular basis, however, the US had not declared a national emergency until March 13, 70 days after it was notified by China, the list clarified. 

Rising criticism 

George Packer, a staff writer from The Atlantic said in his latest article that the coronavirus crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational and collective. However, the US reacted like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government "whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering." 

The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasting, and lies, Packer noted. Such rising criticism was also echoed by more US officials and observers. Some claimed that the blame game can't disguise massive failures when the death toll continues surging over 75,000 and more deaths are forecasted as the government plans to reopen the economy. 

In spite of rising unilateralism, more calls emerged across the globe for joint efforts in fighting the pandemic, for instance, the global medical journal the Lancet said in an editorial published on May 5 that "the coronavirus pandemic puts societies to the test: it is a test of political leadership, national health systems, social care services, solidarity, social contract—a test of our very own fabric." Though Washington has been constantly assailing China and the WHO, the US has been collaborating with China and the world, especially on a people-to-people level, in confronting COVID-19. 

"It is time to end the blame game," Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai said in a recent opinion article. 

All lives are equally precious, and we do not want to see the death toll going up anywhere in the world, and we all want it to come down and want to save every life with the greatest extent possible, Cui told a recent interview with Chinese Central Television, urging that collaboration should prevail in order to get countries through a dark moment in history.