Beijing has been encouraging Taiwanese organizations to purchase Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group to give the impression that all vaccines received by Taiwanese after this summer came from China, industry sources said yesterday.
Chinese officials are urging groups to follow the example of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, which are looking to purchase millions of doses through a subsidiary of the Chinese company, they said.
Shanghai Fosun has a contract with Germany’s BioNTech to sell the vaccine in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Photo: CNA
The Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce reportedly scheduled a meeting with the Ministry of Health and Welfare on June 21 to discuss purchasing 2.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for companies “following the Hon Hai model,” an insider said.
Although the meeting was canceled, the trade group in preliminary discussions hinted at the possibility of eliminating the government’s role in negotiations, including replacing original manufacturer authorization with documentation from a commercial agent, they said.
However, a source with knowledge of the process said that the proposal shows an obvious misunderstanding of the legal process behind vaccine procurement.
Because the association did not plan to donate the vaccines to the government, its application had been put on hold, they added.
When the association first proposed purchasing vaccines, it did so out of concern that a vaccine shortage would affect the industry, but did not indicate how or from whom it would purchase them, an official with knowledge of the matter said.
Association representatives in a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) also expressed a general understanding of the complexity of international vaccine procurement and the need for government intervention, they added.
However, an industry source said that a key figure in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) last month approached the association to suggest that it purchase doses from Shanghai Fosun through Missioncare Group.
KMT-run local governments also proposed purchasing vaccines through the association, reportedly suggesting that they hold a joint news conference to submit their proposal to the ministry, they added.
The KMT believes that including industry representatives could dilute the impression that the party is insisting on procuring vaccines from Shanghai Fosun, the source said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods