KAOHSIUNG (Taiwan News) — Earlier this week, the South China Morning Post published an editorial on the COVID-19 crisis in Taiwan.
The Hong Kong-based, English-language newspaper used to be highly regarded around the world for its frank and probing journalism. But much has changed since the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCPs) annexation of Hong Kong — and one thing that appears to have been lost is a free and independent press.
Once upon a time, a South China Morning Post editorial on a virus outbreak might have offered support and the hand of friendship, as well as unpicking any political or systemic faults that were in evidence. Now we see an editorial that could have been written by the "50 Cent Army" or even dictated from the desk of a Beijing bureaucrat.
“Taiwan has shown that border controls are not in themselves protection against the COVID-19 pandemic” the article says. "The only vaccine the island’s government had been able to secure was AstraZeneca did not help,” the article continues before outlining the unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims of health risks for the vaccination.
As you would expect from an editorial written under the watchful eye of Beijing, the solution to all Taiwan’s problems come from China.
“Help is as close as across the Taiwan Strait, where there is a pool of medical talent, equipment and vaccines,” we are told. But as with everything from China, this help comes at a cost.
Vaccine war
To get it, Taiwan will have to “set aside hostilities” with China. This is vaccine diplomacy stripped of subtlety or nuance.
While it is sad to see the once proud South China Morning Post peddling Party propaganda in this way, the blame by no means lies with them. With the death of the ‘one country, two systems’ model and imposition of the new national security law, media outlets have a choice between adapting to the new reality or following Jimmy Lai's route of jail time and frozen assets.
Any anger should be aimed firmly at the CCP, which is shamelessly trying to exploit Taiwan when it is at its most vulnerable.
When there is a natural disaster in China, Taiwan offers expertise, aid, and support, with no strings attached, because it understands humanitarian situations trump political considerations. If China genuinely cared about the wellbeing of the Taiwanese, it would be doing the same, rather than looking to shift the political dial in its favor.
The editorial name-checks both Sinopharm and Sinovax as vaccines that Taiwan could have quickly and easily, if it plays ball with Beijing. While it mentions the extremely rare blood clots seen with AstraZeneca vaccine, it does not criticize the two Chinese vaccines, namely Sinovax and the WHO-approved Sinopharm vaccine.
Blame game
It is astonishingly naive to think that Taiwan would jeopardize its sovereignty and the political capital it has built up with the world in recent years for Chinese vaccines, when it can get better elsewhere and is developing its own.
One thing the SCMP article is right about is the fact that vaccines are the answer. I said as much only last week.
In many ways, Taiwan is a victim of both circumstance and its own success here. Because we have managed the pandemic so well up to this point, vaccines have understandably been prioritized in other countries where there is a greater risk of lives being lost.
As a result, Taiwan is toward the bottom of the roll-out list. However, even though we now have an outbreak, it is still an extremely small one in comparison to what we are seeing in places like India.
India is also where a lot of vaccines are being manufactured, and this throws another spanner in the works given the knock-on effect the outbreak there is having on global vaccine supplies.
Other obstacles Taiwan faces include allegations of vaccine hoarding in some Western countries like the U.S. — accusations that are not entirely without merit — and an apparent reluctance of Germany to sell us the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine directly.
Return of the MAC
The Pfizer jab is the one many in Taiwan want, but there are also practical considerations here given the geographic distance it would have to be shipped and the fact that it has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius.
Work to secure these vaccines continues and will eventually bear fruit. But as the Mainland Affairs Council has said, the whole process would be much easier and faster if China stops interfering in Taiwan’s internal matters.
“If Taipei could set aside its political differences and put the health of its citizens first by reaching out to Beijing, there is a chance of also improving ties and easing cross-strait tensions,” the South China Morning Post editorial tells us.
No. This is CCP vaccine diplomacy at its shameful worst and Taiwan must not kowtow to it. We have come too far in recent years to cave in to Beijing’s political pressure now.
Ultimately, the answer to Taiwan’s COVID outbreak will be the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine, or (soon) a Taiwanese vaccine. All of these will be reliable, effective, safe, properly tested, and will allow life in Taiwan to get back to normal.
Taiwan must not let anything peddled by the CCP and its newly acquired Hong Kong media mouthpieces convince you differently.
