Vaccine donations from the US and Japan have prompted elements within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to say that Taiwan has become a “vaccine beggar.” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is also chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party, threw in his own two cents’ worth, suggesting that Taiwan is like a little brother accepting a “settling-in” allowance.
It is deeply regrettable that these people have cast such negative aspersions on demonstrations of international friendship.
Following this, the program Across the Strait, aired on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) state television station, mocked Taiwan for “becoming a beggar island” and for being a “vaccine refugee.”
This latest wave of China’s “vaccine warfare” is being aided and abetted in its continued onslaught of words and military intimidation by pro-CCP elements within Taiwan and by its own propaganda machinery, insulting democracy and freedom with such demeaning terms as “beggar” and “refugee” — thereby implying praise for authoritarianism — while disseminating online disinformation and rumors of Taiwanese celebrities seeking the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine.
The front line of the battle for moral supremacy between the democratic and authoritarian models is no longer the Taiwan Strait — it is in Taiwan itself, fought as a media civil war.
For several months now, China’s official state media have been pushing the vaccine issue, with the Global Times on June 18 accusing Taiwan of being a “vaccine orphaned island,” and saying that China’s offer of arranging vaccines to be sent to its “Taiwanese compatriots” was rebuffed, and was Taiwan “cutting off its own escape route.”
On June 15, the People’s Daily Overseas Edition ran an editorial saying that the “Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities” were politicizing vaccines and “putting lives at risk for their own gain,” while accusing Taiwan of “playing the pandemic card” to further its independence agenda.
However they parse it, it is quite apparent that somebody is none too happy that Taiwanese are reluctant to get Chinese-made vaccines.
Just as Lithuanian Minister for Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis said when he announced on Twitter that his country would be donating vaccines to Taiwan — “Freedom-loving people should look out for each other!” — the US, the EU and Australia have all set the tone of the dynamic as a struggle between the values of democracy and authoritarianism.
However, in Taiwan, the opposition parties and some politicians within the DPP have taken to repeating the phrase “putting lives at risk for their own gain” within the context of the government’s insistence on providing Taiwan-produced vaccines for Taiwanese.
Vaccine research and development is a scientific and medical issue. You can question it, but to say that it is “putting lives at risk for one’s own gain” is an overstatement, just as much as saying that Taiwan is a “vaccine beggar.”
Coincidentally, just as the Taiwan-produced vaccines were reaching a crucial stage in their development, disinformation about them started appearing on the Internet, such as articles that detailed inaccurate statistics for the vaccine’s lab results and have proven to be false.
As early as Feb. 28, Chinese state media had published an article saying that Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) was using the vaccine war as a way to profit while putting Taiwanese lives at risk. This concept can be traced back to this date, and from here it was taken up by political talk shows, spread online and subject to manipulation in the media. It was then bolstered by Chinese state media, people working on their behalf in Taiwan, public relations companies and private pollsters, who increased their attacks in the media on a daily basis.
Binding piecemeal messaging with emotive headlines is explosive stuff. Unreasonable, exaggerated phrases such as “vaccine refugees,” “beggar island” and “putting lives at risk for one’s own gain” are already causing serious rifts in Taiwan.
Chien Yu-yen works in the media.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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