Taiwan needs to take up a core role in helping the world detect and tackle the next pandemic, a former US government official said.
Matt Pottinger, a former US deputy national security adviser who served in the administration of former US president Donald Trump, made the remark during an interview with the Taipei Times and its sister newspaper the Liberty Times on Friday.
Matt Pottinger and his wife, Yen Pottinger, former HIV Incidence Team lead at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shared their views on the lessons the world could learn from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Asked about Taiwan’s handling of the pandemic, Matt Pottinger said that “no country did better than Taiwan.”
Taiwan imposed border controls very quickly, manufactured and distributed high-quality masks, performed contact-tracing operations that are consistent with privacy rights and encouraged the public to seek medical care in time, he said.
Yen Pottinger said that, in contrast with Taiwan, the speed with which China dismantled its “zero COVID-19” policy “has come as a shock” and showed Beijing’s irresponsibility, as it stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data last month and reopened its borders on Sunday.
She also warned of a “major case increase” as Chinese are expected to travel home to visit their families during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Some are concerned that the large number of infections in China would lead to a new variant, as the country has low vaccine coverage, she said, adding that “the virus can surprise us.”
To be prepared for the next pandemic, “we can’t rely on the WHO to respond effectively,” Matt Pottinger said.
Instead, democratic countries with enough medical and biological capabilities should create a new organization to compensate for the failures of the WHO, he said, adding: “Taiwan needs to be a core member” of it.
The pandemic exposed the shortcomings of the WHO, Yen Pottinger said, adding that any new coalition should include a quick response team that would be allowed to conduct investigations in other countries to clarify the situation without being influenced by politics.
Members of the proposed coalition should work together to share information and conduct biosurveillance, which is a concept that would be taken more seriously this year, Matt Pottinger said.
The US government included specific provisions for improving biodetection and biosurveillance in its latest national security strategies, which were published in the fall, to map out dangerous pathogens around the world, he said.
Taiwan can help detect the emergence of dangerous pathogens, formulate an international response to them and draw up new international guidelines on laboratory safety, he added.
If COVID-19 is proven to have leaked from a laboratory, it would mean “there was a failure in lab safety,” Yen Pottinger said.
Global standards are needed to regulate experimental facilities and pathogens, as the risks of conducting certain research might outweigh the benefits, she said.
“It’s not enough for WHO to put out guidelines,” she said, adding that a global organization is needed to inspect laboratories, like the CDC does for its domestic labs, she said.
“We’re overdue for starting that process,” Matt Pottinger said, adding that it “has to start with democracies.”
Although it is not possible to predict the pathogen that might cause the next pandemic, antimicrobial resistance poses an imminent threat to humanity, Yen Pottinger said.
In addition, influenza viruses are “always a big threat” as one mutation can completely change the way they can infect people, she said.
Matt Pottinger and Yen Pottinger are to give a speech titled “The Origin and Management of COVID-19: Views from the US Front Line” tomorrow at 10am at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Taipei.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,