The US has withdrawn from the WHO citing the agency’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and failure to adopt reforms. It is estimated that tens of millions of people and trillions of dollars of revenue have been lost to COVID-19 globally.
While WHO officials continued to deny receiving an early warning from Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Dec. 31, 2019, issued a statement saying that Taipei was already aware of seven infections in Wuhan, China, information it passed to the WHO, alerting it to possible human-to-human transmission.
It is undeniable that the WHO was cozy with China, which unfortunately lacks transparency and openness. The global health body not only ignored Taiwan’s serious warning, but also heeded Beijing’s requests and failed to act quickly to identify the origin of the virus. There is no accountability for the pandemic, not from China and not from the WHO, while business goes on as usual.
After so many years, the WHO remains comfortable with what it did or did not do for the world. Its actions cast doubt on its ability to safeguard global health by denying its failures and refusing to implement reforms, all while playing along with a superpower. The WHO can serve humanity better, only if it keeps politics out of science.
COVID-19 is one example of how a superpower such as China can ruin so many lives and livelihoods. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is another. The world needs to be alarmed whenever a superpower can turn against its own people. That brutality would not be limited to domestic abuses. The world has witnessed enough of the imperialism game.
Ukraine has been able to stand up against a superpower bully, with the help of middle powers through military support and economic sanctions. By holding off Russia on the military front, crippling Moscow’s war chest and bringing the war to Russia to give the aggressor a taste of its own medicine, Ukraine has shown that when the middle powers work together, they can counter superpower aggression.
The COVID-19 pandemic also demonstrates that a middle power such as Taiwan is crucial for humanity to uphold truth and safety.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that when middle powers work together to counter the rise of great power rivalry, it is possible to build a more cooperative and resilient world. The economic and defense alliance of middle powers can and must uphold the value-based international order of human rights, sovereignty and democracy.
The rise of a new world order of middle powers is timely to help secure stability when the US is more inclined toward serving its own interests.
Meanwhile, China is purging its top military leadership as an economic depression devastates the lives of millions. A great human disaster is in the making, which could be worse than the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.
The principle of divide and conquer says to finish the war against Russia first, and then deal with the ramifications of a great financial meltdown and possible civil war in China. The resilience of middle powers might be their greatest asset for tackling worldly challenges.
James J.Y. Hsu is a retired professor of theoretical physics.
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