Taiwan has generated a number of headlines in the US for its response to COVID-19.
An article in the Atlantic highlighted the nation’s “Taiwan Can Help” campaign to assist other nations dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks. The New York Times also covered the campaign, pointing out that Taiwan has donated more than 10 million masks. The Washington Post has similarly paid attention to Taiwan’s impressive display of governance in a time of crisis.
These stories, though, fail to convey what makes Taiwan an example to follow both in times of crisis and during more tranquil moments.
The US press can and should see Taiwan as more than just a counterexample to China. What is more, Taiwan is a story worth covering outside of times of crisis.
Sadly, most of the aforementioned articles spend considerable ink painting Taiwan in the shadow cast by its relationship with China and too narrowly frame the nation’s response to COVID-19. In defense of these authors, it is hard not to discuss China’s attempts to push Taiwan out of the international community when covering an international pandemic.
Nevertheless, Americans would benefit from the press allocating more space to why Taiwan has been able to persist through China’s exclusionary practices.
In particular, Americans should learn more about Taiwan’s technological and medical excellence, reliance on experts and culture of civic engagement.
These lessons are more important takeaways for Americans instead of just reminding them about tensions between Taiwan and China or solely referring to Taiwan’s COVID-19 response.
Though mask donations may seem like a simple Taiwanese export, they are indicative of a nation with a long history of technological and medical excellence.
If the US press spent more time outlining how Taiwan has been able to navigate COVID-19 while also having resources to share with other nations, then the American public could realize the potential for even more exchanges with Taiwan.
Consider the recent announcement of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s US$12 billion investment in a chip factory in Arizona — this is the sort of news that should be integrated with other coverage of Taiwan. It at once conveys the nation’s decades-long leadership in technology, as well as the drastic benefits that can come from more partnerships between Taiwan and the US.
In the same way that there is more to Taiwan’s masks, there is also a larger story behind its low rates of COVID-19-based deaths. That story is grounded in the nation’s reliance on experts.
Though some US papers have noted the deference paid to experts by Taiwanese, the fact that the US is led by a businessman of questionable ethics whereas the [outgoing] vice president of Taiwan, Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), is an epidemiologist deserves more attention. This difference is particularly important as Americans seemingly become more comfortable electing people with no sort of experience actually analyzing and responding to public policy issues.
Finally, Taiwan’s culture of civic engagement deserves US coverage both during and after COVID-19. Taiwan’s technological and medical expertise and functioning democracy are possible because of the civic spirit of Taiwanese.
During my time in Taiwan — through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ MOSAIC Taiwan program — I saw this spirit firsthand, as I got to know young civil servants who were fulfilling their civic duty to their country.
Now more than ever, Americans need to adopt a similar approach to national service — a program that, like Taiwan’s, creates a sense of a shared purpose and fosters a culture of collaboration.
Taiwan deserves praise from the US press, but that praise should go deeper than just summary statistics and surface-level details. The more Americans learn about Taiwan, the more they will realize the depth of the nation’s technological prowess and fortitude of its expert-informed and citizen-led government.
Kevin Frazier is a student at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Law. He visited Taiwan through the Mosaic Taiwan 2018 fellowship program.
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3 percentage point drop in turnout, Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years — or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the next five. Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so
I still remember the first time I heard about the possibility of an invasion by China. I was six years old. I thought war was coming and hid in my bed, scared. After 18 years, the invasion news tastes like a sandwich I eat every morning. As a Gen Z Taiwanese student who has witnessed China’s harassment for more than 20 years, I want to share my opinion on China. Every generation goes through different events. I have seen not only the norms of China’s constant presence, but also the Sunflower movement, wars and people fighting over peace or equality,