China accuses US of trying to deflect coronavirus blame after call for Taiwan to be given World Health Organisation role

Beijing accused the United States on Saturday of trying to shift the blame for the coronavirus pandemic, after the US State Department launched a Twitter campaign calling for Taiwan’s inclusion at the World Health Assembly.

The Chinese mission to the United Nations tweeted early on Saturday that the US was engaging in “another political trick” by advocating for Taiwan to take part in the assembly, the decision-making body for the UN’s World Health Organisation.

This year the WHA’s annual meeting will take start in Geneva from May 17.

“Strongly oppose using this question to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” the Chinese mission said. “Trying to shift the blame for inadequate response to #COVID19 in US? No way.”

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A spokesperson for the mission on Friday expressed “strong indignation and firm opposition” at America’s “open support” for Taiwan’s participation.

It cited the UN General Assembly’s resolution 2758 from October 1971, which formally recognised the People’s Republic of China at the UN and expelled representatives from the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name.

“Political manipulation by the United States on an issue concerning China’s core interests will poison the atmosphere for cooperation of Member States at a time when unity and solidarity is needed the most,” the spokesperson said. “The US attempt to divert attention and shift blame is futile and cannot fool the international community.”

The condemnation came after the US State Department began using the hashtag #TweetforTaiwan late on Friday to call for Taiwan’s observer status at the WHO to be reinstated.

Taiwan was an observer between 2009 and 2016, until pressure from Beijing shut the self-ruled island out from the body over the election of President Tsai Ing-wen, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.

The PRC claims that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China” even though it has never controlled the island and has increasingly sought to encircle Taiwan’s space in the international arena.

Taiwan has had a separate government since Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Nationalists fled to the island following their defeat in the civil war in 1949.

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The State Department’s international affairs bureau tweeted that the US “firmly believes that Taiwan belongs at the table” as the world discusses Covid-19 and other global health threats, and that the world needed Taiwan’s medical expertise.

“Is it too much to ask that Taiwan be permitted to share their expertise, their commitment, with the rest of the world?” the bureau wrote. “Will the world succumb to the PRC’s pressure and intimidation?”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry responded on Saturday by urging “like-minded friends and partners” to join in on the #TweetforTaiwan hashtag to advocate for its inclusion at the WHO.

“The UN was founded to protect all countries big & small,” it wrote. “Shutting #Taiwan out of the world body & its specialised agencies is self-defeating & only weakens the international family of nations.”

Australia has also said it would back Taiwan’s return to the WHO as an observer, at a time when tensions have risen between Canberra and Beijing over the Australian government’s push for an independent inquiry into the origin of the Covid-19 virus in China.

In response to criticism that it has shut out Taiwan during a global health emergency, the WHO has said in media briefings that it has held discussions with members of Taiwan’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, public health professionals and scientists.

Steven Solomon, principal legal officer at the WHO, said in mid-April that participation in the World Health Assembly is “an issue that member states of the organisation decide” and that the WHO “does not have the mandate to decide those issues.”