Why, World Health Org Director

Why would the Director-General of the World Health Organization pay heed to the geo-political interests of China – one nation –more so than he does to “world” health interests?  Why, indeed?

I will answer that question and do so with irrefutable evidence. Our trail of evidence will take us to Ethiopia’s Omo River and to a multi-billion-dollar hydroelectric dam funded in large part by China.

We’ll notice along the way that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom was for eleven years a cabinet-level officer of the Ethiopian government.  As Ethiopia’s foreign minister he had frequent and extensive contact with the Chinese government right up to one year prior to his appointment at the World Health Organization.

But first let’s expand our “why” list.

Why would Director-General Tedros consistently back China on the coronavirus topic “despite evidence that the government was slow to react, silenced scientists at home, and resisted cooperation with international disease-trackers”?

Why has Tedros repeatedly praised China’s response to the coronavirus?

Why, after objections from China, has Tedros excluded Taiwan from the WHO pandemic investigation?

Why did Bruce Aylward – Tedros’ COVID-19 team leader – at a February 25 press conference in Geneva give not so much as a response to a question about Taiwan?

Why did Tedros and the WHO delay in declaring COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern, a pandemic?

Why did Tedros praise China for its containment measures, describing them as a “new standard for outbreak control”?

Why did a Tedros WHO team member in a January 25 interview argue against travel restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, stating, “The risk is extraordinarily low for people in the United States”?

Why, indeed!  It almost appears as if Tedros has some sort of political-economic connection with China’s President Xi Jinping.

I promised I would answer that first question:  Why would the Director-General of the World Health Organization pay heed to the geo-political interests of China – one nation –more so than he does to “world” health interests?

Allow me now to deliver on that promise.

This demands that we look back to the time before Tedros – whose full name is Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – was Director-General of the World Health Organization.

It turns out that prior to his WHO post Tedros was Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (2012 to 2016).  It also happens that China’s President Xi Jinping was in office at that time, as he is today.

First, we should notice that today “China remains Ethiopia’s largest source of foreign investment with more than 1,360 current projects.” One of those 1,360 Chinese investment projects was the Omo River hydroelectric dam.

Ethiopia had experienced difficulty in securing funding for its Gibe III Dam project.  This massive dam on the country’s Omo River was controversial on many levels, not the least of which was Egypt’s concerns given the impact the dam would have on the Nile River.  Today this “tallest dam in Africa” is operational.

China’s largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), came to the rescue.  After investment refusals by JP Morgan Chase and the Italian export credit agency, China’s bank became the “premier project backer” by underwriting a $500 million contract for the electro- and hydro-mechanical works.

This contract was awarded to Chinese state-owned company Dongfang Electric Corporation.

Earlier, in July 2009, a $34 million sub-contract had been awarded to Chinese company TBEA for the project’s transmission line.

So, while today’s WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom, was a cabinet-level officer of the Ethiopia government (first as Minister of Health and later as Minister of Foreign Affairs) he was intimately familiar with and already subservient to China.  One does not receive such massive financial gratuity without both familiarity and subservience.

We should not overlook other political-economic similarities between the two countries.  Ethiopia is ruled by a hardline dictatorship.  Labels such as Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia cannot disguise the fact that the country is a de facto one-party state. After the 2015 elections, Ethiopia lost its single remaining opposition party.  There are now no opposition members in the Ethiopian parliament.

Observers from the European Union and elsewhere stated that the country’s vote did not meet international standards for fair and free elections.  Nor does the country’s press operate with freedom.  Citizens have little access to media other than the state-owned networks.

It should not, as a result, surprise us that WHO Director-General Tedros feels politically “at home” with China while being willing to sacrifice the hard truth of China’s COVID-19 behaviors.

This cozy relationship between WHO Director-General Tedros and China is the “why” – I argue – of these World Health Organization missteps, more clearly false statements, recorded by Epoch Times:

“WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China.”

“There is no significant human-to-human transmission.”

“WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travelers.”

“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”

“On Jan. 23, the day the CCP put Wuhan on lockdown, the WHO announced that, despite some internal disagreements, it wouldn’t declare the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.”

We have now answered our opening question:  Why would the Director-General of the World Health Organization pay heed to the geo-political interests of China – one nation –more so than he does to the “world” health interests?