Among the World Health Organization’s “Goodwill Ambassadors” are Chinese President Xi Jinping’s wife and a reporter with ties to Chinese state-run media outlets, according to a report.
Peng Liyuan, known as the “First Lady of China,” has been a Goodwill Ambassador for tuberculosis and AIDS since 2011, American Military News reported Wednesday.
James Chau, a London-born, Beijing-based broadcaster, has been serving as a “Goodwill Ambassador” for Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016.
The biography lists him as a “Guest Presenter on BBC World News” and a “Special Contributor to CCTV where he interviews global leaders and reports breaking news to 85 million viewers.”
China Central Television is China’s state media outlet.
President Trump has been highly critical of China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and its relationship with the WHO.
The president last month accused the United Nations agency of being a “pipe organ” for China.
“They must have known more than they knew,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We knew things that they didn’t know, and either they didn’t know they didn’t tell us … right now, they’re literally a pipe organ for China, that’s the way I view it.”
Earlier this week, Trump sent a scathing letter to the WHO threatening to permanently halt US funding unless it commits to “substantive improvements” in the next 30 days.
In Peng’s biography on the WHO’s website, she is described as a “famous Chinese soprano and actress,” a health activist and the “head of the Chinese Song and Dance Ensemble in the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army.”
It does not mention that she is married to Xi, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.
She has been an ambassador since June 2011, and was appointed by former WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.
Current WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus renewed her two-year term in 2019.
Chau also anchored the confession of Peter Humphrey, a British man who was imprisoned in China in 2013 on claims he illegally obtained and sold Chinese citizens’ information, on CGTN, The New York Times reported in February 2019.
China Global Television Network is an English-language media outlet owned by CCTV.
Humphrey has since been released.