UN sunk to depths of depravity with China

By Chang Kuo-tsai 張國財





The key UN organ responsible for monitoring global freedom of speech, hygiene, missing persons, arbitrary detention and other important freedoms is the Human Rights Council. It investigates human rights worldwide and helps set UN policy.

On April 4, Jiang Duan (蔣端), a minister at the Chinese mission in Geneva, Switzerland, was appointed to one of the five seats on the council’s Consultative Group. The appointment will be remembered as a shameful chapter in the UN’s history.

Jiang represents a government that routinely arrests and incarcerates activists, including Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who died out of prison, but in a hospital under custodial detention.

Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report last year gave China 11 points for civil liberties, higher than only North Korea (3 points) and Tibet (1 point). The report gave China minus-1 point for political rights and assigned the country the status: “Not free.”

Putting a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in charge of supervising freedom of speech worldwide is like employing a gangster to run a security firm.

China is dead to rights over its systematic cover-up of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 during the critical early stages of the outbreak, allowing the novel coronavirus to spread to Europe, the US and many other nations, endangering the health of millions of people worldwide.

China is a country where political dissenters vanish without a trace. The latest example: On April 7, Beijing announced that it had placed millionaire property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang (任志強), an outspoken critic of the CCP’s handling of the crisis, under investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.”

China is a nation that arbitrarily detains hundreds of human rights lawyers, such as Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), who was confirmed released from prison on April 5 after five years behind bars.

There are no prizes for guessing whether the UN’s lofty aims of monitoring global health, missing people and arbitrary detention would be enhanced by Jiang’s inclusion on the panel.

The WHO is another shameful chapter in the UN’s history. It is not in the least surprising that China used deceit and lies to cover up the COVID-19 pandemic. It is shocking that the organization responsible for maintaining world health has demeaned itself.

Since the beginning of the crisis, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been parroting a false narrative, spoon-fed to him by his masters in Beijing.

Tedros’ ignominious behavior sets a new standard of depravity. Under Tedros, the WHO ignored the glaring warning signs during the critical early phase of the pandemic and filled its reports with lavish praise for China’s handling of the crisis.

The WHO Web site carries the strapline: “Better health for everyone, everywhere.” With public trust in the organization at rock bottom, perhaps it should read: “Covering up and procrastinating so that people everywhere die needlessly.”

After the UN, the International Criminal Police Organization, commonly known as Interpol, is the world’s second-largest international organization.

However, when former Interpol president Meng Hongwei (孟宏偉) was in charge of the organization, it became the international branch of the Chinese police, issuing “red notices” for Chinese human rights activists worldwide that China wanted to arrest, such as World Uyghur Congress president Dolkun Isa or political dissident Wang Zaigang (王在剛). It really does beggar belief.

Chang Kuo-tsai is a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and a former National Tsing Hua University professor.

Translated by Edward Jones