On Jan. 2, the New York Times published an article titled “How Taiwan Plans to Stay (Mostly) Covid-Free,” which asks the question: How much longer can Taiwan’s good fortune last?
The article describes Taiwan as a “twilight zone” of an “alternate reality” where life goes on as normal amid a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on so many countries around the world.
By March last year, the COVID-19 pandemic had reached New York City and I, as a doctoral student at New York University, continued living in the city for another five months before returning to Taiwan.
A range of epidemic control measures — including mask wearing, social distancing, meticulous handwashing and even sealing off the city — were employed by the local authorities. The measures certainly had an effect in reducing the impact of the initial wave of the pandemic.
Comparing the respective successes that Taiwan and New York City have had in combating COVID-19, sealing ourselves off from China should be the primary means of pandemic prevention and control ahead of these other measures.
As a matter of course, mainstream media outlets around the world should adopt a skeptical attitude toward any information and news emanating from China.
Right from the start, when news of a mysterious novel coronavirus outbreak in China’s Wuhan first came to light, the Chinese government began to spread misinformation.
Chinese officials initially claimed that there was no human-to-human transmission. When that became untenable, they said there was only “limited” human-to-human transmission. When that was proved to be demonstrably false, officials began to push the line that the epidemic was “preventable and under control.”
China’s “preventable and under control” pandemic has now infected more than 92 million people, caused almost 2 million deaths and incalculable global economic losses.
The New York Times is one of the oldest publications within the US’ fourth estate. However, aside from updating its readers on the virus’ spread and mutation, and providing criticism of the handling of the virus by US President Donald Trump’s administration, it has run precious little coverage of Beijing’s COVID-19 cover-up. This leads one to question whether, behind the scenes, there are other considerations at play.
Following the outbreak of the pandemic, Taiwanese crowd-sourced a “Taiwan Can Help” advertisement in the New York Times. The underlying message was that Taiwan can help, not just in terms of providing medical equipment and resources, and other assistance to nations affected by COVID-19, but also by helping countries around the world to put up the defenses they need to protect themselves from China.
The US and European nations are now in the process of vaccinating their populations against COVID-19. As we wait for the world to return to normal, we must ensure that China is fully held to account for all the damage, death and destruction caused by the pandemic.
Chien Mu-hua is a doctoral student at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
Translated by Edward Jones
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
No state has ever formally recognized the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as a legal entity. The reason is not a lack of legitimacy — the CTA is a functioning exile government with democratic elections and institutions — but the iron grip of realpolitik. To recognize the CTA would be to challenge the People’s Republic of China’s territorial claims, a step no government has been willing to take given Beijing’s economic leverage and geopolitical weight. Under international law, recognition of governments-in-exile has precedent — from the Polish government during World War II to Kuwait’s exile government in 1990 — but such recognition
RSS