US ramps up coronavirus vaccine pledge to Taiwan

Name: All eyes on Taiwan’s home-grown vaccines as 2 local developers await emergency approval
Uploaded: 2021-06-19T13:26:37.000Z
Duration: 2 min 34 s
Description: All eyes on Taiwan’s home-grown vaccines as 2 local developers await emergency approval

Biden official says 2.5 million Moderna doses will be sent to the island this weekend, triple the previous commitment

Prompt delivery is due to experts from both sides being able to work out regulatory issues, official says

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Reuters

Published: 9:26pm, 19 Jun 2021

The United States will ship 2.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan on Saturday, a senior administration official told Reuters, more than tripling Washington’s previous allocation of shots for the island, which has faced increasing political and military pressure from China.

Washington, competing with Beijing to deepen geopolitical clout through “vaccine diplomacy”, initially had promised to donate 750,000 doses to Taiwan, but is increasing that number as President Joe Biden’s administration advances its pledge to send 80 million US-made shots around the world.

Beijing, which considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory, has repeatedly offered to send coronavirus vaccines to the island as it battles a spike in domestic infections. Taipei has expressed concern about the safety of mainland Chinese shots.

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All eyes on Taiwan’s home-grown vaccines as 2 local developers await emergency approval

The 2.5 million donated doses of the Moderna vaccine will leave Memphis, Tennessee, on a flight belonging to Taiwan’s China Airlines early on Saturday and arrive in Taipei on Sunday evening, the senior US administration official said, adding that the prompt delivery was due to experts from both sides being able to work out regulatory issues.

“We are not allocating these doses, or delivering these doses, based on political or economic conditions. We are donating these vaccines with the singular objective of saving lives,” the official said.

“Our vaccines do not come with strings attached,” the official said, adding Taiwan had “faced unfair challenges in its efforts to acquire vaccines on the global marketplace”.

A deal for Taiwan to buy vaccines from Germany’s BioNTech fell through this year, with Taiwan’s government blaming pressure from Beijing.

Beijing has denied the accusation, saying Taiwan is free to obtain the vaccines through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, which has a contract to sell BioNTech’s vaccine in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

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