When reporters at a recent news conference asked Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) why Taiwan’s nucleic acid test for diagnosing COVID-19 is 19 times more expensive than China’s version, he said: “The reason is that our test is more accurate.”
Beijing was not going to let such an “impudent” remark go unpunished and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) duly took the matter up in the following TAO news conference, pointedly referring to Taiwan’s minister of health and welfare as simply “that man.”
Zhu said that large-scale government-administered COVID-19 tests are free of charge in China, and if individual nucleic acid tests are required according to personal needs, this costs the equivalent of NT$344 to NT$516.
Zhu proudly said that China’s screening for the virus is extremely accurate and advised “that man” to have an honest conversation with the public over the cost of Taiwan’s “expensive” nucleic acid test, which Zhu said cost about NT$7,000.
It should not be left up to the TAO to say whether China’s COVID-19 screening is accurate. Let us examine the facts:
At the end of March last year, the Czech Republic ordered 300,000 rapid kits from China.
However, Czech medical officials found that up to 80 percent of the testing kits were faulty.
When Beijing argued that the kits were being used incorrectly, the Czech Minister for Health revised down the defective rate to “only” 20 to 30 percent.
The Spanish Ministry of Health initially determined that 8,000 Chinese rapid testing kits it had purchased from China were defective, but the number of defective kits that had to be returned to the manufacturer later rose to 58,000.
At about the same time, Turkish health officials verified that a batch of testing kits they had received from a Chinese manufacturer were only 30 to 35 percent accurate and were abandoned.
Meanwhile, the British Department of Health and Social Care determined that the type of antibody test kits produced by China were unreliable in COVID-19 patients with only mild symptoms.
As the saying goes: “You get what you pay for.” By purchasing the cheapest product, you might be able to save a quick buck, but you will pay dearly in the fullness of time.
At the same time, you should always shop around to ensure you get the best price and are not being overcharged. These are the cardinal rules of shopping that savvy consumers intuitively understand.
COVID-19 testing kits cost about US$250 per test in the US; in the UK, they cost £130 to £200 (US$178 to US$273); and Japanese tests cost ¥25,000 to ¥50,000 (US$238 to US$476).
Put into context, as a consumer would you trust China’s discount tests? Would you believe the braggadocio of a Chinese official, or the words of “that man” who has established public credibility over the past year?
As a rational consumer should you believe the Chinese dictatorship with its track record of coverups and lies, or the transparent and accountable information provided by Taiwan’s democratic institutions?
The answer should be obvious to anyone with their head screwed on straight.
Chin Ching is an educator.
Translated by Edward Jones
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they