China’s Bargain on Global Influence Is Paying Off

This spring, President Donald Trump declared that he would halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization, previously more than $400 million annually—and he announced this right in the midst of a global pandemic. A week later, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged another $30 million—which would nowhere near make up for the shortfall (not to mention that China still owes the organization $60 million in membership dues, an amount the WHO expects to get later this year). But the moment was a clear case in point for China’s success at checkbook diplomacy, in which the amount matters less than the message: You can’t count on the U.S., but you can count on us.

America was, until Trump ordered a review of the contributions, the single largest state funder of the WHO—China was contributing just over a of what the U.S. was. Yet for years now, even before Trump accused the WHO of being too “China-centric,” American officials worried that China kept somehow buying