Surveys conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for internal reference have shown that most Taiwanese would refuse to take a vaccine made in China, a party source said yesterday.
A survey by the DPP last week showed that 86 percent of respondents would refuse a Chinese vaccine, the source said, adding that among them, 66 percent identified as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters.
A DPP survey conducted in February showed that 60 percent of respondents were unwilling to take a Chinese vaccine, while 30 percent were willing to.
China has attempted to use vaccines to further its “united front” efforts, with Chinese state-run media recently reporting that Pfizer-BioNTech’s Chinese partner, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group (上海復星醫藥集團), has obtained the right to market and distribute the BNT162b2 vaccine in Taiwan, China, Macau and Hong Kong, the source said.
However, Hong Kong on March 24 halted use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine distributed by Fosun after the company told the Hong Kong government that one batch of the vaccine had defective packaging.
Fosun’s supply of the vaccine is also reportedly set to expire at the end of next month.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) on Sunday criticized China for using the sale of vaccines as a “united front” tactic.
“China ceaselessly pressures Taiwan, but now it wants to appear benevolent — just as Taiwan is facing a worsening pandemic — by selling Taiwan vaccines with defective packaging that will expire soon,” he said.
Separately, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) yesterday criticized the KMT and the China Unification Promotion Party for exacerbating attempts by China to sow disorder in Taiwan by calling for imports of Chinese vaccines.
The two parties’ actions would hurt the government’s COVID-19 response measures, she said.
“We stand by efforts to protect the nation. I hope that some people making trouble do not cause the Central Epidemic Command Center to show even the slightest lenience,” she said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS