Will mainland Chinese Covid-19 vaccine offer overcome Taiwan’s scepticism?
- A pro-Beijing school says a cultural body has offered to donate millions of doses, but it is not clear whether the island’s government will grant approval
- Meanwhile, Taiwan reported 355 new cases and 11 deaths on Sunday as it battles an outbreak
The Taiwanese medical authorities reported 355 new local cases of Covid-19 and 11 deaths on Sunday, as a pro-Beijing school said a mainland-based organisation had offered to send it millions of vaccines.
However, any donations still need to be approved by the Taiwanese authorities and many island residents may be reluctant to accept them given the widespread distrust of the Beijing authorities.
The 355 new infections included 266 new local cases and 89 delayed by a reporting backlog, bringing the total number of cases on the island to 8,160, with 110 deaths, according to the Central Epidemic Command Centre.
The 11 reported deaths involved nine men and two women all aged over 50. The ages of those infected in the new cases ranged from five to 80.
More than 85 per cent of the new cases occurred in the original “hot zone” of Greater Taipei and Taoyuan, suggesting that epidemic control measures are helping to limit its spread.
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Cross-strait politics gets in the way of Taiwan’s desperate need for Covid-19 vaccines
On Saturday, the Taipei-based Sun Yat-sen School said it had agreed to receive vaccines donated by a Beijing-based cultural group – pending approval from the Taiwanese authorities.
Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung told local media that mainland-based groups had pledged to send 10 million doses in total – half made by the mainland company Sinopharm and half from the German developer BioNTech.
Chang said that Zeng Nian, the director of the Beijing-based Cross-Strait Oriental Culture Centre, had played a key role in the offer.
Zeng is a grandnephew of both the late Taiwanese president Chiang Ching-kuo, himself the son of the former Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, and former defence minister Yu Ta-wei.
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Another one of Yu’s grandnephews, Yu Zhengsheng, was formerly the fourth most senior official in the Chinese Communist Party.
“Our school is willing to entrust this batch of vaccines to the Taiwan health ministry, letting them arrange the vaccine roll-out and subsequent inoculations,” Chang said.
“We hope the medical and welfare authorities can put aside political disputes to issue import licences as soon as possible, on account of pandemic prevention and humanitarian spirit.”
The island has been struggling to import enough vaccines for its 23.5 million people and the central government had faced heavy criticism for banning local authorities and other bodies from placing their own orders before Friday’s U-turn.
On Thursday, Yok Mu-ming, a former chairman of the pro-reunification New Party, attacked Tsai’s government for not securing enough vaccines, saying he had been forced to travel to Shanghai to get vaccinated.
Shanghai is the first city on the mainland to provide free vaccination for Taiwanese businesspeople and their dependents, but the offer has been greeted with scepticism on the island due to the widespread distrust of the mainland authorities.
Kelly Tsu, a Taipei-based citizen who’s brother-in-law works in Shanghai, said the “free ride” had caused a family rift, adding: “My mother-in-law told my brother-in-law not to get vaccinated on the mainland, because almost all the Taiwanese people don’t trust mainland vaccines.
“The free vaccination is actually political propaganda. Many Taiwanese are disgusted with the Beijing authorities’ political manipulation.”
Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, a former deputy minister on Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said vaccine donations still needed to be carefully monitored by the authorities.
“As the mainland’s vaccine donations took place between local authorities without endorsement by Beijing and Taipei authorities, such a move could also be seen as a move to dwarf Taiwan, making Taiwanese people feel insecure and disgusted by the vaccination,” Huang said.
“I don’t think most people are keen on the mainland vaccines, unless the Covid-19 outbreak is out of control in Taiwan.”
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Chi Le-yi, a Taipei-based political commentator, said many Taiwanese people refused to take mainland-made vaccines, due to their distrust of Beijing.
“I believe some people on the mainland want to help Taiwan out of goodwill, but [the Taiwanese] just don’t trust the Chinese Communist Party after witnessing how they treated people in Hong Kong over the past few years.”
Lee Sheng-li, a retired Taiwanese military instructor and a member of the Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association, said the organisation had also asked for vaccine donations from their branches in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.
“Many Taiwanese accept World Health Organization-approved vaccines, including the BioNTech and Sinopharm products,” Lee said. “We don’t want political disputes to contaminate critical Covid-19 pandemic prevention and control measures.”
