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
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
RSS