China has nominated a prominent Chinese health official  for WHO Director General in the 2027 elections, multiple diplomatic sources have confirmed to Health Policy Watch. 

But there are mixed reports about who that candidate actually may be. Some high-level sources have cited Song Li, a senior Chinese Communist Party official who already mounted a failed bid for the post of Regional Director for  WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) in 2023.  Others, however, have denied that she is a candidate, noting that after losing the 2023 RD election, Beijing wants a stronger contender for a global race.

Either way, China’s immense and still growing geopolitical range of influence from the Western Pacific to Southeast Asia and Africa means it could mount a serious campaign that could permanently shift the delicate balance of power at the World Health Organization – following the withdrawal of the United States from the organization last year.  

WHO election rules hinder transparency

The picture is complicated by the fact that under WHO rules, public disclosure of Song, and any other potential candidate from China or elsewhere, is only required at the end of this month, following the conclusion of the WHO European Regional Committee Meeting on 29 October, the last in the series of WHO regional conferences of member states.  

That’s according to the WHO election process rulebook – which creates a one month gap between the formal submission of nominations to WHO by member states and public disclosure. 

Six prospective candidates have already been announced on the WHO election website – as reported by Health Policy Watch  after nominations formally closed on 24 September.

But their names were published at the discretion of the sponsoring countries, WHO has explained. Nominations don’t have to be formally disclosed until the end of the final WHO Regional Committee meeting, according to the WHO handbook of rules, a spokesperson told Health Policy Watch. 

The Permanent Mission of China to the UN in Geneva did not respond to several Health Policy Watch queries about the DG nomination, sent over the course of several days.

Quietly professional – but still a Communist Party official

Song, Director-General of the Department of Women and Child Health in China’s the National Health Commission, has sat on several WHO technical committees related to maternal and newborn health.  

At the time of the 2023 campaign for WPRO RD, she was described as “quietly professional” by Global health veteran Mukesh Kapila, in a Health Policy Watch analysis of that election campaign. 

“But will China refrain from influencing her so that she can function genuinely independently? Chinese incumbents in international organisations often remain under obligation to their own authorities, and can even be summoned home if they displease their masters,” Kapila, a columnist and Health Policy Watch board member, asked at the time. 

‘No surprise’ for Europeans

Others are asking similar questions now.

“It would come as no surprise if China were to put forward their candidate,” a senior European global health policymaker said in an interview last week with Health Policy Watch on the reports of a China candidate for DG, speaking on the margins of the European Health Summit – Gastein.  “They see a chance to fill the power void that the United States has left behind.”

However, the diplomat expressed doubts as to whether Beijing could mobilize sufficient votes to actually win the race.

While acknowledging the risk of increased polarization within the world’s premier health agency, he described Beijing’s diplomatic approach as “very nuanced,” noting that while Europeans view China as a competitor in some areas, it’s also a partner in others.

Concerns in Washington DC more likely

Effectively, the prospect of a Chinese Director-General would likely raise very different concerns in Washington as compared to Europe, says Kieran Bligh, a former WHO staff member doing doctoral studies on global health leadership at George Washington University and a fellow/commentator for Health Policy Watch.

“The bigger risk is that Washington vacates the space and China fills it,” he says. “The WHO could increasingly become a tool used against US interests while (Washington) has no seat at the table due to the US withdrawal from the agency,”

In an early September Bligh predicted that Beijing would soon make a public move in the Director-General race, stating: “China is doing what any serious global power would do: making sure it has influence over who leads the world’s health agency.”

From Asia’s Belt and Road to Central Africa

The potential for China to muster significant votes to any candidate it mounts is significant, observers say. For one thing, China has recently been appointed to the WHO Executive Board (EB) of 34 member states. China joined WHO’s EB governing body in May 2026, after securing the seat at the 2025 WPRO Regional Committee, as reported by Health Policy Watch. 

In February 2027, the Executive Board will select three finalists for the race – out of the bloc of declared contenders. 

In terms of building support elsewhere, debt-ridden Africa’s 54 WHO member states often vote in a bloc on many major WHO policy issues. Forty-seven African states are affiliated with WHO’s Africa Region, while another seven North Africa nations are members of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the WHO. 

And China’s outsized financial and political influence in Africa extends everywhere on the continent. Chinese firms, for instance, control 70-80% of the copper and cobalt mining in Ebola-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo, including not only legitimate ventures but hundreds of illegal extraction sites in South Kivu province alone where impoverished African families labour.

Across the continent China has invested nearly $200 billion in port, rail and road projects, as well as modern agrobusinesses, which it is increasingly operating as well. And local African markets are  rife with cheap imports of Chinese consumer goods.  

China is the world’s largest official creditor and the single largest bilateral source of official-sector financing to the developing world, according to AidData. Similarly, the massive Belt and Road Initiative has extended Beijing’s economic and political influence across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and even Latin America.

“Money matters,” Bligh says. “Those influences do not disappear when governments walk into a secret ballot [at the Executive Board level, or later, at the full World Health Assembly], and debt exposure can be powerful leverage.” 

He argues that if a Chinese candidate were to win the DG race, burning issues like the origins of the SARS-CoV2 virus would likely be buried forever – and WHO collaborations in future independent queries query could be suppressed. 

To date, China has never responded to WHO requests for blood samples or genetic sequences of the virus from the first patients infected in Wuhan or detailed information about the status of animals sold at Wuhan’s wet markets – where the virus first emerged in late 2019. 

Nor has it provided detailed data on the research work and biosafety conditions in the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the two leading sources from which scientists believe the virus first began to circulate widely. 

WHO needs competent credible leadership most of all

Magda Robalo, President and co-founder of The Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), prefers to see the glass half full rather than empty. 

“Supporters might argue this reflects the growing importance of Asian economies in global health. Critics might worry about political influence over sensitive issues involving transparency, disease reporting, or geopolitical disputes,” the former Guinea-Bissau Minister of Health told Health Policy Watch.

But most of all, “WHO needs a competent, credible and strong leader, able to build consensus among its 194 member states and reform WHO to focus on science, its core strengths and functions, irrespective of nationality or sex,” she said. 

“One cannot ignore the fact that current geopolitical tension, mistrust, fragmentation and erosion of multilateralism will certainly increase scrutiny on candidates’ ties and citizenship.  A Chinese DG candidate could be seen by some countries as reinforcing China’s influence in international institutions. Health is political after all. 

“[But] China has significantly expanded its role in global health over the past two decades through investments in health systems, disease surveillance, vaccine production, and health aid, particularly in Africa and Asia.”

Already the largest WHO contributor and heading FAO 

Long overshadowed by high-income WHO member states in the Americas, Europe and Asia, China is today WHO’s largest state contributor today  in terms of assessed dues, which were . US$137.8 million in 2026. At the 2025 Assembly Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong pledged an additional US$500 million over five years, with a line aimed at Washington: “The world is now facing the impacts of unilateralism and power politics.”  Later WHO records since, however, note the pledged additional amount as still  “to be confirmed”. 

The United States, meanwhile, owes US$280.9 million in arrears and faces suspension of its vote at the very Assembly that will elect the next DG. 

China already holds the top job at another major UN specialized agency. Dongyu Qu, a Chinese national nominated by Beijing, has served as Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization since 2019 and is now in his second term. Dongyu recently came under fire for his scathing comments about other senior FAO officials “playing the game of human rights” at the Rome-based agency.  “We’re not allowing you to play the game here of human rights,” he was filmed saying at a recent FAO assembly. “Of course human rights is very important. But we have the human rights agency in Geneva. If you want to take care of that – go there.” 

That creates an informal barrier to a Chinese nominee to win the election for WHO DG – insofar as countries have typically preferred that such powerful leadership roles be distributed amongst UN member states – rather than concentrated with one nation. 

But meanwhile, the secrecy now surrounding the definitive list of candidates also opens the way for a closet game of poker  – in which a country with an undisclosed candidate could potentially leverage commitments from one of the other, publicly declared competitors for post-election policies or appointments in exchange for withdrawing quietly from the race. 

Not the first time China has held senior leadership roles at WHO

To be clear this would not at all be the first time that senior posts were awarded based on nationalities and not only competencies. 

In fact, a DG’s appointments of his or her Assistant Directors Generals and other senior managers is often payback for support received during the campaign. 

And it would not be the first time, at all, that a Chinese national held a senior position at WHO.   From May 2023 – Jun 2025, Ailan Li served as an Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage, Healthier Populations under Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Following the 2025 WHO budget crisis leading to staff reductions, Li’s position was eliminated. She is now the WHO Representative to Thailand.  

Moreover, a Chinese national, Margaret Chan, held the Director General’s post from 2006 to 2016 – the first ever to do so. 

But Chan was a native of Hong Kong and a senior health official there during the first SARS outbreak – a period that preceded China’s brutal 2020 crackdown on dissent, Hong Kong’s free media and semi-autonomous governance that the Island has since seen 1997. She also was a dual Canadian national.

Secrecy adds to potential leverage against other candidates

The candidacy of any high level member of the Chinese Communist Party, if it were to materialize, would still be unprecedented in terms of the level and scope of influence it would open up to Beijing.  

Equally unprecedented is the amount of leverage that a shadow candidate nominated by Beijing or by any other member state could wield on other DG competitors – between now and the end of the month – when full disclosure will be required by the WHO rules.  

The technical loophole that has emerged, therefore, in how the horses leave the gate, is thus a muddy start to a race that most global health pundits describe as a crossroads that could determine the very survival of WHO as a robust, independent global health entity in the UN family.  

Image Credits: Wikipedia Commons, WHO, ©The Rudin Group , MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti, Harvard-Kennedy School, Deutsche Welle.