US, China standoff ensnares WHO meeting on COVID-19 fight

GENEVA (AP) — Facing the most disruptive pandemic in generations, the technocratic halls of the World Health Organization are now the scene of pitched battles in an increasingly bitter proxy war between the China and the United States.

At the U.N. health agency's annual assembly this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping joined by video conference to offer more money and support. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump railed against the WHO in a letter accusing it of covering up the coronavirus outbreak with China — and threatening to permanently halt U.S. funding that has been its main financial lifeblood for years.

It marked the latest showdown between the world's last superpower and the rising Asian giant vying to supplant it on the global stage — this time against the backdrop of a disease that has killed over 300,000 people, left hundreds of millions jobless and ground the world economy to a halt.

For America’s allies in the West and beyond — who have counted on the postwar stability and prosperity that the United States has fostered — the standoff was another gut-check moment about the “America First” leader, now heading into a tough reelection contest.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Health and Human Rights at Georgetown University, said the withdrawal of the U.S. from the global health world would mark a seismic political shift.

“What the U.S. is doing is acting like a bully, making an existential threat to the WHO, and my worry is if the U.S. ever made good on that pledge, the world would splinter,” he said. “This is giving an enormous political prize to China because China has long been looking for a chance to shine on the global stage."

A U.S. exit would likely weaken the global health agency and leave the U.S. and China to each fund their own projects,...