WHO treats Taiwan like crud, cries racism when they protest

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Taiwan hit back at the head of the World Health Organization as a dispute over the self-ruled island’s exclusion from the body threatened to overshadow efforts to rein in the spread of the coronavirus.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry demanded an apology for what it called unnecessary and slanderous comments from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Tedros, who is Ethiopian, had earlier accused Taiwan of being behind a racist campaign against him and Africans in general.

“Without having checked the facts, Tedros’s unprovoked and untrue accusations not only differ from reality, they have also seriously harmed our government and our people,” the ministry said in a statement Thursday. “This kind of slander is extremely irresponsible.”

President Tsai Ing-wen expressed “strong protest” against Tedros’s allegation that it was behind racist attacks and invited him to visit the island.

“Taiwan always objects discrimination in any form. We know how it feels to be discriminated against and isolated more than anyone else as we have been excluded from global organizations for years,” she said in a post on her official Facebook page. “So I’d like to invite Tedros to visit Taiwan, to see how Taiwanese commit to devote to international society despite being discriminated and isolated.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said later Thursday that it hopes “the Taiwan authorities will not politicize the pandemic or engage in any political maneuvering.”