TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwanese Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) on Monday (Feb. 15) stated that if China really cared about the health of Taiwanese, it would allow Taiwan to join the World Health Organization (WHO).
Responding to recent comments by former President Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九) on Taiwan possibly accepting Chinese vaccines, Frank said on Facebook that in terms of technological capability, China is surely able to develop an effective vaccine given that the virus originated in its city of Wuhan. There were many confirmed cases during the early stages of the pandemic, so sampling would have been quite convenient, he stated.
However, China has not been transparent with the relevant data, the representative said, adding that it is inevitable that the regulations and technology behind the country's vaccines will be questioned. Furthermore, Hsieh pointed out that the political context makes accepting Chinese inoculations even more complicated.
"Just as Huawei's products are suspected of implanting Trojan horse programs and stealing data from the U.S. and European countries, the vaccine is a matter of trust. Should we trust China's goodwill?" Hsieh remarked.
Observing that developed countries rarely order vaccines from China, Hsien mentioned that Japan has ordered 300 million coronavirus vaccines, some of which were made in the U.S. and the U.K., but none are from China.
The representative noted that Taiwan is threatened by Chinese military aircraft almost every week and that Beijing has repeatedly stressed it will not rule out the use of force to unify with Taiwan. Under such circumstances, the former president’s belief in China’s goodwill must be puzzling to many international observers, he added.
He also stated that if China really cared about the health of Taiwanese, it would not oppose Taiwan's joining the WHO and it would not block other countries from selling vaccines to Taiwan. These would be true gestures of goodwill, Hsieh said.
He concluded by saying that if China were to ask Taiwan to accept its vaccine but continue its military threats, this would make Taiwanese uneasy.
