China nominates Song Li for WHO chief

China nominated maternity health expert Song Li to lead the World Health Organization, putting forward a candidate who could become the second Chinese national to head the UN health agency.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning announced the nomination on Thursday and said it showed China's support for multilateralism.

The WHO website presents Song as head of the Department of Women and Child Health at China's National Health Commission, with a 21-year career. Chinese media say she has since taken up a role at the All-China Women's Federation, a Chinese Communist Party organisation that lists her as its secretary.

The next WHO director general will replace Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, whose second five-year term ends in August 2027. He cannot run again because of the WHO's two-term limit.

China's announcement came after the September 24 deadline for candidates. The WHO is due to publish the full list in early November. Its 34-member Executive Board is expected in January to nominate up to three candidates for the World Health Assembly, which will choose a winner in May 2027.

Song is running against candidates proposed by Belgium, Botswana, Indonesia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Spain. They include WHO Europe director Hans Kluge and Eastern Mediterranean chief Hanan Balkhy. If elected, Song would be the second Chinese national to lead the WHO after Margaret Chan, who headed the Geneva-based organisation from 2007 to 2017.

The nomination follows the United States' withdrawal from the WHO after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. Trump has accused the WHO of being a “puppet of China”, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first Covid cases were detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Trump's administration believes the virus leaked from a virology laboratory in Wuhan. WHO investigations into Covid's origins have been inconclusive, with all hypotheses still on the table, and Tedros has urged China to provide early viral sequences.

The US withdrawal left China as the biggest contributor of WHO membership fees, ahead of Japan and Germany. Voluntary contributions remain the organisation's main source of funding, and China was far from the biggest overall contributor in the 2024-2025 biennium.

The WHO cut its budget by more than 20 percent last year, with hundreds of jobs cut and programmes scaled back, after the US withdrawal and foreign aid cuts by other countries. Tedros says the organisation has completed its reprioritisation and is on a stable footing.