[xster]

> recognize Taiwan as a sevreign nation

This statement shows the power of western media. Yes the WHO doesn't. Neither does any other political entity in the world.

Neither the US, nor the 14 of 193 UN members that has diplomatic relations with the ROC, nor does "Taiwan" itself recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.

Even the most pro-US pro-independence party in Taiwan, the DPP, does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. According to Taiwan, Taiwan is a province of the ROC which includes the mainland and the present country of Mongolia.

And you would want the health agency of the UN to be the first in the world to spearhead tectonic geopolitical changes because the corporate media tells you so?

[busymom0]

Taiwan emailed WHO in December warning about China lying about the human-to-human transmission not happening and WHO refused to acknowledge Taiwan's reports. Then on January 14th, WHO tweeted saying human to human transmission was not possible. Then when it came out that they were wrong, they claimed Taiwan never emailed them. Taiwan brought receipts with the emails.

Also the WHO spokesman went on an interview with Hong Kong media and refused to even answer a question about Taiwan, then hung up the call after pretending to not hear the question.

This is not corporate media telling me so (don't even know why you would claim that). This is plain facts on video and email available for everyone to see.

[xster]

Seems like a goalpost shift since I was just responding to your claim about "Taiwan sovereignty".

And since you brought up the December 31st email, that only amplifies my point about corporate media if you formed your opinion on editorials obfuscating the primary source rather than the primary source itself. Here's the actual email from Taiwan https://twitter.com/mohw_taiwan/status/1248915057188024320

"News resources today indicate that at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, CHINA. Their health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not SARS; however the samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment. I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us. Thank you very much in advance for your attention to this matter."

It's so embarrassingly not "a warning" from Taiwan that Taiwan has been busy deleting the original email from their press release archives and rerouting permalinks to their emails (still available on their tweet at.cdc.tw/23iq82) to a further obfuscating rebuttal.

Meanwhile, people who just read corporate media headlines and don't bother with primary sources or critical thinking goes around telling people "Taiwan emailed WHO in December warning about China lying about the human-to-human transmission".

[busymom0]

You are proving my very point. The twitter email you linked specifically says "atypical pneumonia".

> In China, the term “atypical pneumonia” is commonly used to refer to SARS, a disease transmitted between humans caused by coronavirus.

"transmitted between humans" - what WHO claimed does not happen even though Taiwan warned them about it.

> patients had been isolated for treatment

That's also referring to the human-to-human transmission part of COVID - which WHO denied. This is the warning Taiwan had sent in December and WHO lied and went even further to state that they never received any email from Taiwan. It's literally in the email. I don't know how much clearer they can get.

> Meanwhile, people who just read corporate media headlines and don't bother with primary sources or critical thinking goes around telling people "Taiwan emailed WHO in December warning about China lying about the human-to-human transmission".

You trying to claim I don't have critical thinking makes you sound arrogant. I don't want to engage in flame wars on HN so it's not replying to it further.

[xster]

I'm afraid this is another goalpost shift. Remember we started with

> recognize Taiwan as a sevreign nation

I'm then responding to your

> Taiwan emailed WHO in December warning about China lying about the human-to-human transmission

Very bold statements. If you're saying that the WHO should have changed their January 14 statement from "there are no clear evidence of human to human transmission" to "there are clear evidence of human to human transmission because Taiwan stated:

News resources today indicate that at least seven atypical pneumonia cases were reported in Wuhan, CHINA. Their health authorities replied to the media that the cases were believed not SARS; however the samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment. I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us. Thank you very much in advance for your attention to this matter."

then I suppose there aren't really anything anyone can say that'll be of interest to you.

[busymom0]

You keep saying I am moving the goalpost but I am not. My original comment was in reply to the last statement where you said:

> "spearhead tectonic geopolitical changes because the corporate media tells you so"

and I was merely pointing out that the HK media is the one which pointed out how WHO ignored Taiwan's warning. Then you went around stating I "don't bother with primary sources or critical thinking" which is just a silly ad hom attack and not worthy on HN. I almost always read the primary source and that's exactly what I had done with the Taiwan vs WHO thing. I don't just watch the media and believe everything they say, I have seen too many examples of them not reporting the facts. Also I haven't even seen much coverage of the Taiwan situation in the western media so I have no idea how you are making that conclusion. Most of the western media is too busy defending China anyway.

> then I suppose there aren't really anything anyone can say that'll be of interest to you

Considering you think the Taiwan's email wasn't enough to justify a different statement from WHO than parroting China's talking points, why do you think WHO lied about them never receiving any correspondence from Taiwan warning about human-to-human transmission?

Also maybe calling people names and thinking you are somehow better than the person you are interacting with is a tactic you wish to employ though I don't think it's suited for HN discussions. Let's not resort to that.

[dmix]

This is why using WHO as the body for 'truth' is idiocy. They have a hundred different incentives pulling them in different directions. Automatically making it a poor 'source of truth' or, even worse, what is not okay to talk about.

It might be a good source of information for governments around the world looking to take the most neutral diplomatic and balanced stance on every issue.

Not sure why those same incentives should then be influencing what people are allowed to talk about on the internet.

[xster]

I think I generally agree. I'm very against YouTube content control whether it's censoring gun contents or taking down pro-China channels during the Hong Kong protests.

Your statement misses the point a bit though. I don't think anyone's arguing that WHO/UN is a source for (political) 'truth'. It's just a medical advisory body. If the UN was the source of 'truth', Israel might not exist in the present form anymore since half of all UN resolutions against single countries are against Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolut.... The fact that no one is likely to know that is precisely because what you're arguing against is already not true.

[nyolfen]

i think i would settle for them saying the word 'taiwan'