Taiwan hit back Thursday after the chief of the World Health Organization accused the island’s government of participating in a racist campaign to smear and intimidate him, deepening the political furor surrounding an agency in the crosshairs of the Trump administration for its alleged pro-China bias.
The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said the allegations by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were groundless and demanded an apology from the United Nations official a day after he told reporters in Geneva that Taiwan has been abetting a campaign of racist slurs and death threats against him for the past three months.
Tedros, a former Ethiopian health and foreign minister, has faced growing criticism of his handling of the covid-19 outbreak since January, when the U.N. body repeatedly backed positions espoused by the Chinese government and praised Beijing’s epidemic response.
