Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) concession to end Beijing’s “zero COVID” policy is a rare accomplishment for any protest in China. While giving credit to the “Blank Paper Movement,” where the credit is due, there were indications that the COVID-19 pandemic in China had surged beyond belief. Xi might be simply leveraging on the protests to lift quarantine restrictions and disguise his inability to handle the pandemic.
The recent deaths of 21 retired professors and 12 retired staffers from Tsinghua University and Peking University within one month is the tip of the iceberg that betrays Beijing’s massive fatalities under the surface.
Infections and deaths are also exploding in other cities to the extent that medicine stocks are running out or are priced at hundreds of US dollars. The human plight might be exploding on an unimaginable scale.
China was among the first to develop a COVID-19 vaccine by means of an inactivated virus, which was the basis for vaccines against polio, as developed by Jonas Salk in the 1950s, and rabies and hepatitis A, for example. Inactivated virus vaccines cannot infect cells, but stimulate antibody-mediated responses, and therefore have weaker and shorter-lived immune response.
According to a study published in The Lancet and cited by The Economist earlier this year, one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine produced in China by Sinovac Biotech Ltd (科興) has much lower efficacy than Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine in all age groups in general, but among older people in particular.
However, a third dose of Sinovac’s vaccine showed about equal efficacy for the earlier variants, but does not protect as well against the Omicron subvariants of SARS-CoV-2, Bloomberg reported.
The sad truth is that national pride has led the Chinese government to reject outside help. China’s authoritarian model of combating the COVID-19 pandemic did not champion the protection of lives, especially those aged 65 and older.
By contrast, Taiwan leveraged its experience in containing the 2003 SARS outbreak by responding to the COVID-19 crisis with rapid measures, early deployment, prudent action and transparency. The latest data show that among 8.5 million infections, only 0.45 percent became seriously ill.
The lack of transparency in the authoritarian model of disease prevention has left many serious questions to be asked. What is the population percentage inoculated with three doses of vaccines? If the Chinese vaccines were effective, why was a strict lockdown necessary?
As many retirees, including a number of well-known people, died suddenly, what are the real-life efficacy rates among different age groups? Did China stock enough medicines to treat patients? How effective are the Chinese vaccines against serious symptoms, and what are the chances of mutated pathogens developing if many people become seriously ill?
This last question is critical, as Western vaccines might prove to be much less effective against variants that might develop. That means the COVID-19 pandemic could easily re-emerge around the world as a result.
Demanding the Chinese government to be open and transparent required a nationwide protest to protect lives in China, and beyond, which allowed the international community to better prepare and offer help. In fact, Washington said it would help China deal with the surge of COVID-19 infections if Beijing requests assistance.
The Chinese government must make a choice to either cover up the problem for the sake of national pride, or be open to outside help to save lives in an unprecedented crisis.
Only a democratic government that upholds human rights and freedom of speech can offer transparency. This pandemic can be an opportunity for China to grow into a democratic and free country, and to benefit people at home and abroad.
James J.Y. Hsu is a retired professor of physics.
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
Strategic thinker Carl von Clausewitz has said that “war is politics by other means,” while investment guru Warren Buffett has said that “tariffs are an act of war.” Both aphorisms apply to China, which has long been engaged in a multifront political, economic and informational war against the US and the rest of the West. Kinetically also, China has launched the early stages of actual global conflict with its threats and aggressive moves against Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, and its support for North Korea’s reckless actions against South Korea that could reignite the Korean War. Former US presidents Barack Obama
RSS