The World Health Organization is an indispensable institution in the fight against pandemics. In dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis the WHO and its director general Tedros Adhanom have provided and disseminated important and critical information for dealing with the virus, but were also criticized – not least by US president Donald Trump – for acting to slowly in the early stage of the crisis and being too close to China. MERICS Senior Policy Fellow Hanns Maull and Junior Analyst Thomas des Garets Geddes look at the relationship of the WHO and China, how it has affected the response to COVID-19 and how Taiwan complicates this picture even further.