TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has again drawn the ire of netizens from Taiwan and beyond for placing Taiwan under China in a coronavirus case tally.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Jan. 26), the account of the WHO Western Pacific Region provided information regarding the number of total COVID-19 cases, deaths, and new cases reported over the past 24 hours by countries and areas in the region. Taiwan was erroneously depicted as part of China, sparking an uproar from the online community.
Critical comments soon poured in. One user said, “Funny the WHO doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a sovereign country,” while another suggested, “Why don’t [you] directly put all countries under China?”
The U.N. body has come under fire for allegedly siding with China since the coronavirus broke out in Wuhan. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in April 2020 accused the Taiwanese government of encouraging its people to discredit him and claimed he had been a target of racist slurs originating in Taiwan.
While the WHO has ostensibly piled praises on China for what it called a swift response to the pandemic, an investigation carried out by the Associated Press last year revealed that Beijing has been procrastinating on the provision of relevant disease information to the organization. This has frustrated WHO officials and hampered the effort to curb the deadly virus, AP found.



