A surge in local COVID-19 infections over the past week has dented the government’s much-lauded success in containing the virus and revealed a critical flaw in Taiwan’s fight against the disease: an inadequate vaccine rollout.
The lack of a domestically produced vaccine, difficulty obtaining foreign jabs due to governments prioritizing their own citizens, vaccine hoarding by some countries and suspected meddling by Beijing to obstruct vaccine sales to Taiwan have stymied Taipei’s efforts to secure a sufficient amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Meanwhile, the reluctance of Taiwanese to get the relatively few available AstraZeneca jabs doused the government’s attempts to kick-start a vaccination program.
However, with the surge in local cases, Taiwanese now have a renewed sense of urgency to get vaccinated, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spied an opportunity in Taiwan’s misfortune.
The CCP has offered its Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, but the government has turned it down, not only due to questions over the vaccine’s effectiveness, but also due to concerns over the CCP’s “vaccine diplomacy” and “united front” motivations.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Monday sought to exploit the outbreak for CCP propaganda purposes, saying that “Taiwan compatriots” — whom she called “our flesh and blood relatives” — are eager to use vaccines from China and that “it is imperative to remove Taiwan’s artificial political barriers.”
With Zhu pretending that Beijing is acting from a purely humanitarian position devoid of political motives, China’s propaganda machine has rammed home the CCP’s message for international consumption.
The English-language edition of the Global Times said: “Despite the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] authorities’ discrimination propaganda and extremely hostile policies against [China], [Beijing] this time also showed its kindness based on humanitarian principles and the family-style affection [by offering the Sinopharm vaccine].”
The China Unification Promotion Party last week called on the government to accept the vaccine, which it said China has offered out of “goodwill” and for the sake of “maintaining Taiwanese’s health and well-being.” Otherwise, the DPP would be “responsible for deaths and health problems among Taiwanese, and cause the outbreak to deteriorate,” it said.
Beijing desires the DPP’s compliance because it wants to show the world how it is helping a “much-loved,” if “wayward,” “local” government.
Fostering the impression that Beijing, with its authoritarian governance and greater resources, is more capable than the Taiwanese government in containing the virus would be a public relations coup for the CCP.
Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) responded to Zhu’s comments by saying that China should not express its “fake concern,” and that Taiwan can obtain more reliable vaccines from the international community as long as China does not obstruct its efforts.
A new batch of more than 400,000 AstraZeneca shots arrived in Taiwan yesterday, and the government is exploring various avenues to secure greater amounts of more effective vaccines from trusted sources — and which come with no strings attached.
However, these, as well as domestically produced vaccines — which President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said would be ready by late July — would take time to deploy, whereas the CCP’s offer is already on the table.
Despite what Zhu would have Taiwanese believe, this is a propaganda war, and the CCP is ready to turn up the heat if Taiwan’s outbreak worsens.
The government must fight back and explain to the public why it turned down the CCP’s poisoned offers.
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