I used to think Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's head, had a pro-China bias. Now I think he has just been trying too hard to keep everyone happy in a futile quest to coax some of the most difficult leaders of our time into cooperating.
To that end, he had said both Trump and Xi had "done a great job". Today, it has also been revealed that WHO conspired with the Italian government to suppress a damning report on the country.
His position is not an enviable one. He
- has with only moral persuasion and no coercive power,
- leads an organisation that relies a lot on Western funding,
- owes his own position with a lot of Chinese support through a one-state-one-vote procedure, and
- was from and nominated by the TPLF, the former ruling party of Ethiopia which less than two weeks ago has just suffered a major setback in the ongoing civil war. He will need somewhere to go after WHO.
Could he have been more direct in 'handling' China, Italy, the US, etc? Probably, but it might not have been intrinsically deplorable to take a position that it's better to coax countries and keep information flowing at least to WHO officials, who could then advise other governments how lives could be saved without naming the source.
Of course, that strategy always carried a risk that he would become a useful fool to others. And, one would argue, he did.
====
No comments:
Post a Comment