As of yesterday, COVID-19 had already taken the lives of 518 Taiwanese, and there seems to be no end in sight for a nationwide level 3 alert that has been in effect for a month. Worldwide, the virus has caused medical systems to collapse, leaving tens of thousands dead.
Still, no nation has been brought to its knees: The virus is not an existential threat to nations.
Just a month ago, the public had been complacent about the virus. Then, four weeks ago, COVID-19 suddenly reared its ugly head in Taiwan, and the nation became fixated on vaccines. Once the public realized that Taiwan only had about 1 percent of the vaccine stocks it required, a tsunami of anxiety and fear washed over the nation.
Talking heads, media organizations and politicians fell over themselves to censure the government for not being prepared, and criticized its control measures as inadequate or misconceived. A narrative quickly formed that cast Taiwan as being in the grips of “vaccine chaos.”
Thankfully, the Japanese government threw the government a lifeline. On June 4, a Japan Airlines plane landed in Taipei, laden with a donation of 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“For Taiwan, speed, not quantity, is of the essence,” former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said.
This shows that Abe understood that Taiwan was drowning in fear. Once the consignment of vaccines arrived, sure enough, the fear began to recede.
Two days later, three US senators — Tammy Duckworth, Dan Sullivan and Chris Coons — flew into Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) from South Korea for a three-hour stopover.
The cross-party delegation pledged that Washington would donate 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan by the end of this month.
In addition to the gift and the political significance of Washington’s support, many Taiwanese focused on the US military Boeing C-17 Globemaster strategic transport aircraft that the three senators arrived on.
The massive aircraft engendered a feeling of calm, strength, technical superiority and force. The large “US AIR FORCE” bold lettering emblazoned on the side of the aircraft also became a talking point: The appearance at Songshan airport had the additional effect of calming the public’s frayed nerves.
As Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu (孫子) wrote: “If you wish to feign confusion in order to lure the enemy on, you must first have perfect discipline; if you wish to display timidity in order to entrap the enemy, you must have extreme courage; if you wish to parade your weakness in order to make the enemy overconfident, you must have exceeding strength.”
“Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdividing one’s army into units and practicing deception,” he wrote.
“Alternatively,” he added, “seeing that we are favorably circumstanced and yet make no move, the enemy will believe that we are really afraid.”
“Carefully conceal your best soldiers and only allow the infirm and emaciated to be seen by the enemy,” he wrote.
With Washington and Tokyo’s assistance, the public’s timidity and weakness have received shock therapy, and the sense of fear has dissipated.
City and county governments, as well as command centers, could improve cooperation and management efficiency. They could do this perhaps by making use of big data to carry out automated epidemiological analysis to track possible virus transmission pathways. This could include creating a smartphone app to provide an amalgamated virus prevention and public health portal linked to each user’s National Health Insurance card.
The high transmission speed and efficiency of this networked data could surpass the transmission speed of the virus, thereby keeping it in check. This would restore order, and Taiwan would once again become a model for managing the virus on the international stage.
The virus on its own cannot destroy a nation, but fear and chaos can.
Joly Lin is vice chairman of Mennonite Christian Hospital in Hualien County and vice president of a company.
Translated by Edward Jones
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS