Comment by paranoidrobot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paranoidrobot | Hacker News Reader

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Asking these sorts of political questions to scientists puts them in a difficult position.

If he answers in the affirmative, he pisses off China, and will likely see them retaliate by withdrawing from cooperation at a time when that could have severe impacts on the world's ability to deal with a pandemic.

If he answers in the negative, he pisses off Taiwan, a lot of people, and a lot of countries who are also not willing to stand up to China on this issue.

And what's the benefit for asking this of an epidemiologist. He's not there to give personal political opinions, he's there to be an expert on a specific subject.

As for the rest of the issues - I know you're not specifically saying it, but there's a lot of folks that blame the WHO for not warning people about this, or delaying announcements.

The WHO were quite early in warning that countries should be prepared for this, that there should be greater efforts put in attempting to limit it's spread.

There is some truth that they didn't declare it a pandemic as early as everyone wanted, they had to wait for it to meet official definitions of being a pandemic.

The WHO declaring a pandemic, however, didn't mean countries couldn't act earlier to stop it.

Why did he not say so?

"I'm sorry, but this is a political question which I'm not able to answer.".

or

"You know this question puts me in a difficult position and it is not up to me."

To me it seems his mind is made up. He does what China wants. He doesn't try to appear neutral. To him Taiwan is China.

But either way - it shows how great power China has over international bodies and it is scary.

Besides questions of WHO competency, we have to ask ourselves whether WHO even has good intentions in the first place.

The reporter wasn't stupid, they were hoping for some kind of reaction.

It's not too dissimilar to taunting someone hoping they'll do something you can latch onto.

The lack of reaction / dodging was clearly enough to drive up a shitstorm. Any attempt to acknowledge and answer the question, even in deflecting it, was going to cause more trouble.

> it shows how great power China has over international bodies and it is scary.

It shows how much power China has in general.

Look at Hong Kong. Most countries are doing nothing except making vague statements for peace, at most some are offering refuge for some who want to escape.

> Any attempt to acknowledge and answer the question, even in deflecting it, was going to cause more trouble.

This is certainly not true. WHO lawyer gave later lengthy explanation of WHO position on Taiwan on a press conference and nobody cared. It wasn't the issue of Taiwan that shocked people. Everyone following news knows that UN is politically paralyzed institution.

What was shocking, to me and people I know, was the extend of fear and disingenuity of a member of WHO. He has clearly western roots and we expect from him western political culture. He is the man in authority position who we are supposed to trust. But this behavior was all but trustworthy. He was deceiving. He was laying and he was voluntarily following Chinese party line.

The reporter was not stupid, indeed. It's her job to ask difficult questions.

I applaud her for opening my eyes to the fact that I should trust WHO only about us much as I trust China.

> Look at Hong Kong. Most countries are doing nothing except making vague statements for peace, at most some are offering refuge for some who want to escape.

Again, this is something that I tend to expect. Western states have nothing to gain there and we have no obligations to these 7.5 million people.

> It shows how much power China has in general.

I guess maybe I was naive, but my a prior would be that USA would have a lot more power. The fact that western people are bowing before China in this way is new to me.

You can't be a 'World Health Organisation' if you refuse to talk about a crucial region of millions of people that had the best response and most important information. It's clearly rotten at the core.

They can't be a World Health Organisation if they do admit Taiwan, either.

It requires governments to sort this shit out, not an organisation who is focussed on health.

How was it a political question? Taiwan exists. You can have a political position on whether they should exist, but they do. Deal with it.

And they are not currently part of China. (Or, at least, they are not currently governed by the government of the rest of China.) Again, deal with it.

Different governments had different responses, which had different effects. Under the circumstances, to say "we already covered China" is pretty close to dereliction of duty.

Yes, I know China is going to have a hissy fit if anyone admits that Taiwan exists as a separate entity. China needs to stop acting like a five-year-old. I would say that WHO needs to tell China where to get off, except that (in this situation) WHO really needed China's cooperation. That makes this a much more difficult question to answer.

But, in fact, it is China that makes this a political question. The question itself is not inherently political.

The question wasn't "Does Taiwan exist" it was about letting Taiwan join the WHO. The WHO admitting Taiwan as a member is the same as them coming out and stating that Taiwan is not part of China.

As for whether they're part of China - that's also a political thing. If you don't believe that, then ask why the US doesn't formally recognise Taiwan as an independent country. Oh, right, because the US Government decided that it was better to keep having access to Chinese markets. The US isn't unique here, most countries don't formally recognise Taiwan either, because it's beneficial for them not to.

OK, I misunderstood one thing. The question wasn't about Taiwan's response to Covid (which WHO had better be able to answer, politics or no politics), it was about Taiwan joining WHO. That is a political question.

But:

> As for whether they're part of China - that's also a political thing.

Yes and no. No, they are not currently part of China. You have two separate governments, neither of which is subordinate to the other. Therefore neither one is part of the other. That's the de facto reality. It's not ambiguous, it's not subjective, and it's not open to interpretation.

But yes, it's political in that both sides claim a de jure unity - they just disagree about who's in charge of it. And it's political for everybody else, because they can't side with Taiwan without upsetting China, and they aren't willing to upset China.

But for China to try to pretend that the de facto situation is other than what it is... hey, we aren't blind, China. We know what the reality of the current situation is, no matter how much they try to pretend that it's something else.

Hong Kong is in the WHO as Hong Kong. Are you saying we aren't part of China?

They're in the WHO as "Hong Kong SAR (China)" and only attended "under its own name" from 1989-1996.

https://www.who.int/hongkongchina/about-us

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