“Shocking & Regretful”: UN Security Council Becomes US-China Battleground Over WHO

At this point China is grasping at whatever it can to use as leverage to “embarrass” Washington — so to no one’s surprise Chinese officials are expressing outrage at the US blocking a draft United Nations Security Council resolution backing UN chief Antonio Guterres’ call for a global ceasefire in order to concentrate the world’s resources on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

A Chinese diplomat was cited in Reuters as saying it was “shocking and regretful” that Washington withdrew its support for the draft resolution Friday.

“The United States had agreed to the compromise text and it’s shocking and regretful that the U.S. changed its position,” the diplomat said. However, a US official shot back, saying there was never any agreement about the text.

Front and center to the debate is the World Health Organization, currently source of deep controversy and growing tensions between China and the US, especially after German intelligence just revealed that Chinese President Xi Jinping asked World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Thebreyesus to cover up the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in January, according to a bombshell Der Spiegel report.

As related to the UN’s draft ‘global ceasefire’ Reuters explains that “talks have been stymied by a stand-off between China and the United States over whether to mention the World Health Organization.”

It remains that “The United States does not want a reference, China has insisted it be included, while some other members see the mention – or not – of WHO as a marginal issue, diplomats said.”

The US ultimately rejected any reference to the WHO, even when the text was changed to merely denote “specialized health agencies” instead of a direct reference. US diplomats also reportedly vowed to veto anything with such language in it.

President Trump cut off funding for the WHO, which is a UN agency, after it not only severely downplayed the coming threat of a global pandemic (by only belatedly identifying it as such), but after the administration charged the organization with being “China-centric” and allowing itself to be Beijing’s “disinformation” puppet as communist officials attempted to do PR damage control after the disease ripped through Wuhan and then spread far outside China’s borders.