During a televised Skype interview on RTHK last Saturday (Mar 28), Bruce Aylward, the now former assistant director-general of WHO, was accused of dodging questions about the possibility of including Taiwan in the WHO and declining to comment on Taiwan's ability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. He reportedly even hung up on the reporter when she attempted to dig for more comments.

Since then, there have been several theories as to why Bruce was so reluctant to talk about Taiwan. According to online sources, Taiwan has been denied membership to most international organisations that China is already a part of, including the WHO, the International Olympics Committee and the International Civil Aviation Organization, since the Chinese government considers Taiwan as part of their country. Taiwan, however, identifies as an independent state.

So when the reporter, Yvonne Tong, asked Bruce if the WHO would “reconsider Taiwan’s membership” in view of their capabilities, she was met with a couple of seconds of awkward silence before Bruce uttered that he “couldn’t hear [the] question”. 

After Yvonne offered to repeat her question, Bruce interrupted her and said: “No, that’s okay, let’s move to another one then”. When she pressed on with her questioning, he apparently hung up on her.

In a follow-up call, Bruce again declined to comment about Taiwan's response to the virus, simply because he had “already talked about China”.

“And when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job,” Bruce said in a sweeping statement before ending the interview.

Bruce’s lacking response quickly went viral and he was met with accusations of showing political bias towards China.

“Wow, can’t even utter “Taiwan” in WHO? You should set politics aside in dealing with a pandemic,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu, lashed out on Twitter. 

Among the scores of angry netizens was the famously vocal Hongkong star Chapman To, who is known for his anti-Beijing sentiments. The actor wrote on Facebook: “WHO is s***. No question mark”.

Since the uproar, Bruce’s name has been removed from the WHO headquarters leadership team list. 

Photos: RTHK/Chapman To/Facebook