China, US diplomats clash over origin of COVID-19

Top US and Chinese diplomats appear to have had another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing accusing Washington of politicizing the search for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a telephone call on Friday that revealed wide divisions in a number of contentious areas, including the curtailing of freedoms in Hong Kong and the mass detention of Muslims in Xinjiang. Calls for a more thorough investigation into the origin of COVID-19 are particularly sensitive for China because of suggestions that the virus might have have escaped from a laboratory in the central city of Wuhan, where cases were first discovered. Yang said that China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. China “firmly opposes any despicable acts that use the epidemic as an excuse to slander China and to shift blames,” Yang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency. “Some people in the United States have fabricated and peddled absurd stories claiming Wuhan lab leak, which China is gravely concerned about,” Yang said. “China urges the United States to respect facts and science, refrain from politicizing COVID-19 origin tracing and concentrate on international anti-pandemic cooperation,” he said. The US Department of State said that Blinken “stressed the importance of cooperation and transparency regarding the origin of the virus, including the need for [WHO] phase 2 expert-led studies in China.” The US and others have accused China of failing to provide the raw data and access to sites that would allow a more thorough investigation into where the virus sprung from and how it initially spread. Equally contentious were the issues of Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well as accusations that China has arbitrarily detained two Canadians in retaliation for

Agnes Chow freed from prison on HK protest anniversary

Hong Kong democracy advocate Agnes Chow (周庭) was yesterday released from prison on the second anniversary of the territory’s democracy rallies, with police out in force and protests now all but banned. Two thousand officers have been placed on standby after social media calls for residents to commemorate the failed democracy demonstrations. Authorities have kept a prohibition on public gatherings to curb the spread of a COVID-19, despite the territory recording just three local infections in the past month, and a Beijing-imposed National Security Law criminalizing most expressions of dissent. However, yesterday morning one of those arrested for allegedly contravening the security law walked free from prison. Chow, 24, was mobbed by waiting media, but made no comment. Chow hails from a generation of democracy advocates who cut their teeth in politics as teenagers and became an inspiration for those who chafe under Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule. She spent about seven months behind bars for her role in a 2019 protest outside the Hong Kong police headquarters. Fellow democracy campaigners Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) and Ivan Lam (林朗彥) were sentenced in the same case. More than 100 people have been arrested under the new law. Chow has not yet been charged, but dozens of others have, including jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英). Most have been denied bail and face up to life in prison if convicted. Chow’s release comes at a sensitive time. Two years ago, on June 12, 2019, thousands of protesters surrounded the the territory’s legislature in an attempt to stop the passage of a bill that could have allowed extraditions to mainland China’s opaque judicial system. Riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the huge crowds, sparking seven months of inceasingly violent protests. Separately, the main representative of the Chinese government in Hong Kong yesterday said that people trying to turn the territory into

COVID-19: CECC reports 286 local virus cases

CARING FOR THE SICK: The center said that it would distribute monoclonal antibody drugs and negative pressure isolation units to hospitals across the nation

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 286 new local cases of COVID-19 and 24 deaths. The local cases are 141 males and 145 females, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a daily news briefing in Taipei. This week’s total case number seems to have slightly decreased compared with last week’s total, but has remained relatively level, Chen said. Previous centers of the local outbreak recorded the largest number of new cases, with 120 in New Taipei City, 56 in Miaoli County and 49 in Taipei, center data showed. Taoyuan had 19 new cases, Hsinchu County had 12, Keelung had eight, Changhua County had seven, and Taichung had four, it showed Yilan County and Hsinchu City each recorded three cases, Yunlin and Hualien counties each recorded 2, and Tainan recorded one case, the data showed. The 24 deaths were 12 men and 12 women aged in their 50s to 80s, it showed. They died between Wednesday last week and Wednesday, and all of them had chronic illnesses, the data showed. The center also reported one imported case, from Thailand. As of yesterday, Taiwan had recorded 12,500 confirmed cases, including 11,294 local cases and 1,153 imported ones, and 385 deaths from the disease, the data showed. The center said that it has procured monoclonal antibody medications for 1,000 COVID-19 patients and expects to receive them in the middle of this month. The drugs would be administered to patients with moderate symptoms, but a prognosis that they might get worse, Chen said, adding that the patients would be informed of the risks before the treatment is given. The drugs would be distributed to hospitals with centralized isolation wards, he said. Chen also outlined the distribution plan for 10 negative pressure isolation units that arrived in Taiwan on Thursday. The units, made by Japan’s Hitachi Ltd, would be

By Lin Chia-nan

COVID-19: G7 leaders pledge to distribute 1bn jabs

GOAL SET: The donated vaccines would help end the pandemic by next year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said ahead of the summit at a southwest England resort

G7 leaders yesterday opened a three-day summit aimed at helping to end the COVID-19 pandemic and forge a climate-centric economic recovery, after pledging to donate 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world’s poorest countries. US President Joe Biden and his colleagues from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK sat down for their first face-to-face gathering in nearly two years, after the pandemic wiped out last year’s summit. Meeting under the protection of a smothering security operation in the Cornish resort of Carbis Bay, England, the leaders are also expected to address warnings to Russia and China. Most of the G7 heads of state and government are to reconvene on Monday in Brussels for a NATO meeting, before Biden heads to his first summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, vowing to deliver a blunt appraisal of Russian behavior. After arriving in the UK on Wednesday on his first foreign tour as president, Biden told US service personnel that “the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together.” The G7’s host, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said that the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China had also “badly shaken” the international order. “At Carbis Bay, we must put those days behind us,” he said in a pre-summit message. “This is the moment for the world’s greatest and most technologically advanced democracies to shoulder their responsibilities and to vaccinate the world, because no one can be properly protected until everyone has been protected.” Building on Biden’s pledge to order 500 million vaccine doses to distribute among poorer nations, Johnson plans to commit Britain to offering “at least” 100 million surplus doses within the next year. In total, the G7 leaders are expected to adopt a broader commitment of offering up to 1 billion doses “to end the pandemic in 2022,” the

COVID-19: Health minister Chen positive about Medigen trial data

Phase 2 trial data of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) looked promising, but professional review is needed to assess the vaccine’s efficacy, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said at a news briefing at the Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday. Medigen announced the results of the vaccine trial on Thursday afternoon, following the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announcement of emergency use authorization standards for locally developed vaccines earlier that day. Despite Medigen’s optimistic outlook, questions have been raised whether the successful phase 2 trial is enough to determine whether the vaccine offers adequate protection against COVID-19. Asked about the issue, Chen echoed the FDA criteria, saying that the vaccine was administered to more than 3,000 trial participants and that the developer’s data proved its safety. Chen said that the reported seroconversion rate of 99.8 percent is “a good sign,” proving that most trial participants showed virus-specific immune responses. The company’s data showed it was able to produce three vaccine batches with consistent quality, he said. Medigen also reported a moderately good antibody concentration ratio, with a geometric mean titer (GMT) of 662, but whether the drug is effective needs further expert review, Chen said. Studies suggest a positive correlation between the GMT figure and vaccine efficacy, but whether a person’s blood antibody level determines whether they are protected against the virus needs further review, Chen said. Medigen’s results would be compared with a control group of 200 people who were given two doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Chen said. Those results would be available later this month, he added. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on May 28 signed preorder contracts with Medigen and United Biomedical Inc (聯亞生技開發), another domestic developer of a COVID-19 vaccine, to procure 5 million doses each, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said on

By Lin Chia-nan

Trade negotiations with US to resume

Trade negotiations between Taiwan and the US are to resume at a virtual meeting, with supply chain security as a likely topic, Minister without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) said on Thursday. Deng, who heads the Office of Trade Negotiations, told the Central News Agency in a telephone interview that other likely topics would include carbon emissions, labor rights and welfare, digital economy, intellectual property rights, and trade secrets protection. Details of the talks under the Taiwan-US Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) have not yet been determined, but the first such talks in four years would be held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Deng said. During the interview, Deng confirmed that he attended a videoconference earlier that day with Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪). Deng said that Tai’s friendliness toward Taiwan was evident during the talk and that she highlighted the US’ willingness to engage with Taiwan in many areas. Tai’s office later yesterday issued a media readout, announcing that Deng and Tai during the meeting pledged to convene the 11th TIFA Council. After signing the TIFA agreement in 1994, Taiwan and the US held 10 high-level talks from 1995 to 2016. The meetings were suspended under the administration of former US president Donald Trump, reportedly due to Washington’s objections to Taiwan’s trade restrictions on some US products, including pork products containing residues of the feed additive ractopamine. Deng said that the revision of the import ban last year showed Taiwan’s commitment to internationalization and stronger trade relations with the US. “Taiwan is an important part of the international supply chain and a trusted partner of the US,” he said. Separately, American Institute in Taiwan Director Brent Christensen wrote on Facebook that a TIFA meeting would take place this month. Restarting the TIFA process would

HK to broaden movie censorship

Hong Kong has instructed censors to ban any movie that could be seen as endorsing activities that would contravene the National Security Law imposed by Beijing last year, the latest curb on freedom of expression in the territory. Hong Kong yesterday said it was amending guidelines under the Film Censorship Ordinance to consider the security law — which bars subversion, terrorism, secession and collusion with foreign forces. The rules determine the suitability of movies planned for public exhibition in the territory. Censors should be mindful of their duty to prevent and suppress acts or activities that endanger national security, including anything that threatens the “territorial integrity” of China, the Hong Kong government said. “The censor should be vigilant to the portrayal, depiction or treatment of any act or activity which may amount to an offense endangering national security,” it said. That includes “any content of a film which is objectively and reasonably capable of being perceived as endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying, encouraging or inciting such act or activity,” it added. The new rules are the latest effort to roll back freedoms in the territory, which is home to the regional headquarters of many international news organizations and guarantees freedom of expression under the Basic Law. Local authorities have also moved to restrict access to public information, including the important Companies Registry, and have launched an overhaul of public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong, which has had some hard-hitting programs and episodes canceled. The new rules instructing censors to block movies that could endanger national security use “very vague language” and are open to interpretation, said Keith Richburg, director of the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Center. “It’s hard for me to see how a film could endanger the security of any country, but let’s hope these guidelines don’t cause filmmakers or film distributors to begin self-censoring

Medigen optimistic over trials

PHASE 2: The firm’s CEO said that the results were good and the experimental vaccine safe, but added that hoped-for phase 3 trials would be expensive

Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) yesterday reported positive results from an interim analysis of phase 2 trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, saying that the vaccine demonstrated high seroconversion rates and geometric mean titer (GMT) figures. A seroconversion rate is the percentage of participants in a trial displaying virus-specific immune memory after being given a vaccine, while the GMT measures the level of neutralizing antibody response, Medigen said. The experimental vaccine has a seroconversion rate of 99.8 percent and its GMT was 662 among the participants aged 20 to 89, while the gauges rose to 99.9 percent and 733 respectively in participants aged 20 to 64, the company said. No participants have shown severe adverse reactions, it said. Only 0.7 percent of participants who were given experimental vaccines had a fever, compared with 0.4 percent in those who received a placebo, while among those who received the vaccine 27.6 percent had muscle soreness and 36 percent felt tired, compared with 16.6 percent and 29.7 percent respectively for those who were given a placebo, it said. “It would be the regulator that decides if our experimental vaccine has good efficacy, but I personally found the results — the seroconversion rates and the GMT figures — optimistic,” Medigen chief executive officer Charles Chen (陳燦堅) said. “And it is very safe,” Chen added. The company will apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization as soon as possible, he said. However, asked which COVID-19 vaccine developed outside Taiwan that has been granted emergency use authorization Medigen’s experimental vaccine might be compared to, the company said it has not reached a conclusion. “An estimate needs to be done scientifically. We can conduct an immune-bridging study to compare the antibody levels in people who are given different COVID-19 vaccines, and the WHO is also trying to establish common standards for COVID-19 vaccines,”

By Kao Shih-ching

FDA unveils standards for EUA of local vaccines

UNBLINDING: The efficacy of locally developed COVID-19 vaccines must at least be on par with the AstraZeneca vaccine to be granted emergency use authorization

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced emergency use authorization (EUA) standards for locally developed COVID-19 vaccines, just hours before Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端) announced its phase 2 trial results. The standards include safety data from at least 3,000 subjects and efficacy test results at least on par with the AstraZeneca vaccine, the FDA said. The standards were determined after a year of discussions with experts in the clinical, statistical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, public health and other related fields, it added. The EUA review is to focus on two main points: safety and efficacy, Medical Products Division deputy head Wu Ming-mei (吳明美) told reporters. Efficacy would be difficult to assess, as clinical trials were held while Taiwan did not have any community transmission, Wu said. This means the subjects did not have contact with the virus, making it less clear whether the vaccine had the intended effect compared with the control group, she added. The review would therefore refer to a criteria the WHO began discussing earlier this year called immunogenicity, which measures the type of immune responses triggered by a vaccine and their magnitude over time, she said. This would involve measuring the level, or titer, of neutralizing antibodies in the body after vaccination to determine efficacy, she added. To determine the appropriate level, the FDA is to commission Ministry of Health and Welfare hospitals to conduct studies comparing the effect of domestic vaccines with that of foreign vaccines, Wu said. Researchers are to put together a control group of 200 Taiwanese who have received both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine since rollout began in March, she said. If the neutralizing antibody titer among subjects who received the domestic vaccine are at least as high as that of the control group, then the vaccine would be considered effective, she added. As for the safety part of the evaluation, the

By Kayleigh Madjar

Taipei official quits over vaccines ‘blunder’

KO SAYS NO: Taipei’s health director said that a vaccine shortage made it difficult to get data from clinics, while two foundations apologized over their jabs program

Taipei Department of Health Director Huang Shier-chieg (黃世傑) yesterday tendered his resignation after 1,285 people were vaccinated for COVID-19 at a Taipei clinic without necessarily being eligible. However, the resignation was not accepted by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The Good Liver Clinic (好心肝診所), which has several branches, on Monday requested 15 vaccine vials, saying that it was to inoculate its 101 health workers, and on Tuesday requested an additional 100 vials. However, the vaccines were also given to volunteers working at the clinic, and at the Good Liver Foundation and other personnel. The Taipei City Government on Wednesday fined the clinic NT$2 million (US$72,192), removed it from a list of approved inoculation sites and will no longer provide it with vaccines. A severe shortage of vaccines has made it difficult for the department to obtain first-hand information from clinics, resulting in the Good Liver blunder, Huang said. Huang claimed responsibility for the situation and said he tendered a verbal resignation. The city government yesterday held a news conference stating that as of yesterday, six clinics — including Good Liver — had received 202 vials, enough to inoculate more than 2,000 people. Ko apologized on the city government’s behalf, citing problems with internal regulatory measures, adding that its processes are being reviewed. However, he did not accept Huang’s resignation, asking him to stay at his post until an investigation is completed. Starting immediately, all vaccines issued by the department will be documented on the department’s Web site, including date of issue, destination, which category of eligible recipients are to get the shots and how many vials are issued, Ko said. Later yesterday, the Good Liver Clinic said that the facility administered unauthorized doses because it believed all of the medical personnel in Taipei had been vaccinated. In a statement apologizing for the incident, the Good Liver Foundation and the Liver Disease Prevention

By Cheng Ming-hsiang, Yang Hsin-hui, Jake Chung and Kayleigh Mad

CECC reports 263 local virus cases and 28 deaths

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 263 domestic cases of COVID-19, three imported cases and 28 deaths. Of the new local cases, 124 are male and 139 are female, with their ages ranging from under five to older than 90, the center said. The onset of their symptoms was between May 22 and Wednesday, it said. New Taipei City had the most local infections, with 112 cases, followed by 58 in Taipei and 43 in Miaoli County, it said. Taoyuan had 14 cases, Keelung had 12, Changhua County had 10 and Hualien County had seven, it said. Nantou and Hsinchu counties reported two cases each, while Tainan as well as Yilan and Taitung counties each had one case, it added. Of the 93 domestic cases reported outside Taipei and New Taipei City, 84 had known sources of infection, five had unclear connections with other cases and four were under investigation, it said. The 28 deaths were 21 men and seven women aged in their 50s to 90s, while only three of them did not have chronic illnesses, CECC data showed. The onset of symptoms among them was between May 13 and Tuesday, they were confirmed to have COVID-19 between May 16 and Wednesday, and died between Tuesday last week and Wednesday, it said. Three new imported cases, all of whom are Taiwanese, included two men in their 30s who separately returned to Taiwan from India and Nigeria on Monday and April 14 respectively, and a woman in her 40s who returned from the US on Thursday last week, the center said. While in the US, the woman on April 9 received a dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine and another on April 30, the CECC said. While vaccines are effective at protecting people from developing a severe case and death, they do not guarantee “100 percent” protection from infection, Centers

By Sherry Hsiao

Burmese junta charges Suu Kyi with graft

The Burmese junta has charged deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi with corruption over claims that she accepted illegal payments of gold and about US$600,000 in cash, state media reported yesterday. The country has been in turmoil since the generals on Feb. 1 ousted Aung San Suu Kyi, with more than 850 civilians killed in a brutal crackdown by security forces on near-daily protests against the coup. The 75-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been in custody since the putsch, is facing a raft of wide-ranging criminal charges, including sedition and breaching a colonial-era secrecy law. The latest charges relate to allegations by a former Yangon government official that Aung San Suu Kyi illegally accepted US$600,000 in cash from him along with about 11kg of gold. The Burmese Anti-Corruption Commission found evidence that she had committed “corruption using her rank,” the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported. “So she was charged under Anti-Corruption Law section 55.” She is also accused of abusing her authority when renting two areas of land for her charitable foundation. After weeks of legal wrangling, two of Aung San Suu Kyi’s trials are due to start in earnest next week, hearing evidence from witnesses. In the capital, Naypyidaw, her trial on charges of contravening restrictions during last year’s election campaign and possessing unlicensed walkie-talkies is to start on Monday next week. A separate case is scheduled to start the following day, in which she is charged with sedition alongside ousted Burmese President Win Myint and another senior member of her National League for Democracy party. Her lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, called the corruption charges “absurd.” “There is an undeniable political background to keep her out of the scene of the country and to smear her prestige,” Khin Maung Zaw told reporters, adding that she could face long prison terms on the secrecy and

Clinic to be fined over shots program

PRIORITY GROUPS: A line of people were waiting at the Good Liver Clinic, apparently to get shots, while the CECC announced more priority groups for jabs

The Taipei-based Good Liver Clinic is to be fined NT$2 million (US$72,028) after giving free COVID-19 vaccine shots to people not in groups eligible to receive them, Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said yesterday. The Zhongshan District (中山)-based clinic was removed from the city’s list of vaccination venues and health officials would be investigated for giving 1,113 doses to the clinic, Huang told an afternoon news conference at Taipei City Hall. The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) on Tuesday in an exclusive story citing an anonymous tip reported that a Taipei clinic was doling out unused vaccines. People in a line at the clinic on Tuesday told the Liberty Times that they were waiting to be vaccinated. The clinic was inoculating anyone with a National Health Insurance (NHI) card regardless of vaccination priority, one person told the Liberty Times. Clinic employees said that the people in line were there for medical tests. At 10:30pm, an announcement, apparently by a clinic employee, said that the clinic was “out of vaccines” and that people in line should leave. Prior to yesterday, only three groups of people in Taipei were eligible to receive jabs, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is spokesman for the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), told a daily briefing. Giving NHI-covered COVID-19 vaccines to people who are not eligible is a breach of the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), an offense that can be punished with a fine of NT$300,000 to NT$2 million, Chuang said. At the briefing, the CECC announced additional COVID-19 vaccine priority groups, which include about 3.53 million people in seven categories. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said the revised list of priority groups was finalized at an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The top three priority

By Lee I-chia and Jonathan Chin

CECC reports 274 locally transmitted cases, 25 deaths

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 274 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 25 deaths. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the local infections, 142 males and 132 females, are aged from under five to over 90, and symptoms began between May 14 and Tuesday. The confirmed cases are mostly residents of New Taipei City, with 162, followed by Taipei (63), Taoyuan (15), Miaoli County (12), Keelung (10), Changhua County and Nantou County (three each), Yilan County (two), and Hsinchu County, Taichung, Chiayi City and Tainan (one each), Chen said. The 25 deaths were 20 men and five women aged 50 to 100 who began showing symptoms between May 11 and May 30, he said. The were diagnosed with COVID-19 between May 17 and Saturday, and died between May 29 and Monday, he said. The local COVID-19 situation has been stable for the past few days, Chen said, adding that crowd controls are still in force and people should avoid traveling over the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend starting on Saturday. Expanded rapid testing at the nation’s three major science parks after electronics companies in Miaoli County reported cluster infections last week is proceeding smoothly, he said. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that among the 296 deaths from COVID-19 reported from May 11 to Monday, 35, or 11.8 percent, died before being admitted to hospital. It is difficult to assess what happens when people are not hospitalized, so a sudden death at home indicates that COVID-19 symptoms can progress rapidly, Lo said, adding that foreign studies have suggested the main reason for such incidents is “silent hypoxia.” Such cases might be avoided if people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are hospitalized, or stay at centralized

By Lee I-chia

Former vaccine committee member accused of working at Chinese firm

Academia Sinica academician Chen Pei-jer (陳培哲), who on Monday resigned from the vaccine review committee, has been accused of working as an adviser for a Shanghai-based Chinese pharmaceutical company. Chen was allegedly listed as a “scientific adviser” on the Web site of Zhimeng Biopharma Inc (上海摯盟醫藥科技公司) in Shanghai, China, while he served as a committee member, sources said yesterday. If the claims are true, it could mean Chen had contravened the law restricting government officials and employees from undertaking concurrent jobs in China and other countries. Chen is also a professor at state-funded National Taiwan University (NTU) and a medical researcher at NTU Hospital. Chen yesterday said he was not in a paid position at the Chinese firm. He showed a letter from Zhimeng Biopharma stating that Chen’s scientific adviser role is an honorary title without any responsibility, obligation or payment, and “purely scientific advancement.” However, critics said Chen and the company were trying to cover up their ties. When resigning from the committee, Chen accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of pressuring the body to expedite the approval of the MVC-COV1901 vaccine being developed by Medigen Vaccine Biologics. Citing his reasons for resigning his post, Chen said he believed the committee would have trouble staying neutral when reviewing domestic vaccine candidates. The main problem was Tsai, as she said a locally developed COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be available late next month, Chen said, insinuating that the Food and Drug Administration could not resist pressure from the president and would expedite the vaccine’s approval. New Taipei City Councilor Ho Po-wen (何博文) of the Democratic Progressive Party yesterday accused Chen of working to benefit China by sabotaging Taiwan’s vaccine development efforts. Ho presented documents allegedly showing that Chen had close ties with universities and biotechnology companies in China, including Xiamen University. Ho also said that Chen timed his resignation and public accusations just

By Jason Pan

AIT promotes Taiwanese companies at US summit

LARGEST DELEGATION: US President Joe Biden told representatives from 75 countries at the virtual event that ‘America is back’ and it is ‘open for businesses’

There are 220 delegates representing 153 Taiwanese companies at the SelectUSA Investment Summit this week, the largest single delegation from a foreign market at the event, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. The summit, which began on Monday and ends tomorrow, is in its eighth year and is being run virtually this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the AIT said in a news release. It is being hosted by US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, with US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking on Tuesday, an agenda showed. In a pre-recorded speech, Biden welcomed representatives from 75 countries, saying: “America is back. We’re open for businesses.” Taiwan’s delegation is headed by Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中). In addition to the global summit, the AIT has organized virtual meetings for members of the Taiwanese delegation to attend with more than 40 global businesses, it said. The meetings with government and industry leaders are to explore opportunities in sectors including electric vehicles, semiconductors, the semiconductor supply chain, uncrewed aerial vehicles and personal protective equipment, it said. “We created a customized program for these strategic sectors in order to deepen our commercial ties with Taiwan, a trusted partner in securing critical global supply chains, which is a top priority of the Biden administration,” AIT Director Brent Christensen was quoted as saying in the news release. Taiwanese companies operating in the US provide 19,100 jobs, invest almost US$159 million annually in research and development, and contribute US$1.6 billion to US exports, the AIT said. The AIT said that 2019 data, the latest available, showed that total foreign direct investment by Taiwanese companies in the US was US$47 billion.

By Lin Chia-nan

US advances innovation bill to counter China’s rise

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping industrial policy bill aimed at countering the surging economic threat from China, overcoming partisan divisions to support pumping more than US$170 billion into research and development. The measure cleared the chamber on a 68-32 vote, one of the most significant bipartisan achievements in the US Congress since US President Joe Biden took office in January. It also represents the largest investment in scientific research and technological innovation “in generations,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. The bill now heads to the US House of Representatives, which earlier passed a different version. The two will have to be reconciled into a single bill before it is sent to the White House for the president’s signature. Biden said he was “encouraged” by the Senate’s passage of the US Innovation and Competition Act. “We are in a competition to win the 21st century, and the starting gun has gone off,” Biden said. “As other countries continue to invest in their own research and development, we cannot risk falling behind. America must maintain its position as the most innovative and productive nation on Earth.” The package, a key provision of which addresses a shortage of semiconductors that has slowed production at US automakers this year, would help US industry bolster its capacity and improve technology. It is seen as crucial for US efforts to avoid being outmaneuvered by Beijing as the adversaries compete in the race to technological innovation. “Today, the Senate took a critical bipartisan step forward to make the investments we need to continue America’s legacy as a global leader in innovation,” US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “This funding isn’t just about addressing the current semiconductor chip shortage, it is about long-term investments.” Schumer called the measure “one of the most important things this chamber has done in a