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Taiwan has had a great response, but I do want to correct one thing: > It was initially difficult due to lack of vaccines and interference from mainland China.

Taiwan has had a great response, but I do want to correct one thing: > It was initially difficult due to lack of vaccines and interference from mainland China. This was more a political decision from the Taiwanese government that it would not buy the BioNTech vaccine through the licensed distributor, because that distributor is a mainland Chinese company. Taiwan insisted on bypassing the Chinese distributor and buying directly from BioNTech, which would have been a violation of BioNTech's contract with the Chinese company. The reason the Chinese company had the license was that it invested in the development of the BioNTech vaccine very early on. The Taiwanese government then blamed the PRC for supposedly blocking Taiwan from buying the BioNTech vaccine. The real issue was that given its politics, the DPP did not want to be seen to be relying on the mainland for vaccines.

jake_morrison 5y ago
That's partisan nonsense. China was pressuring the manufacturers, i.e. "Taiwan is part of China, so you should sell to us and we will give them to Taiwan." Then they tried to pressure Taiwan for concessions to get the vaccines to save their lives. Taiwan ordered vaccines, only to have them not show up. They had to trade chips from TSMC for access to vaccines. This is the same as China using political influence and corruption to keep Taiwan out of the WHO.
- DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
  Fosun bought the distribution rights in greater China. Pfizer bought the rights in the rest of of the world outside of Europe. BioNTech retained the rights inside Europe. The Taiwanese government knew exactly who to call up to order the BioNTech vaccine - Fosun. For political reasons, they refused to do so. Instead, they knowingly tried to get BioNTech to breach its contact with Fosun. When BioNTech predictably decided not to, the Taiwanese government acted outraged and made a big media affair out of it. > They had to trade chips from TSMC for access to vaccines. No, that's not what happened. The founder of TSMC stepped in to buy vaccines from Fosun, so that the Taiwanese government could claim it hadn't done business with Fosun, a mainland company. This was a face-saving measure for the Taiwanese government. After declaring that they would never buy vaccines through a mainland company, they couldn't easily climb down, so the TSMC founder acted as an intermediary.

jake_morrison 5y ago

That's partisan nonsense. China was pressuring the manufacturers, i.e. "Taiwan is part of China, so you should sell to us and we will give them to Taiwan." Then they tried to pressure Taiwan for concessions to get the vaccines to save their lives. Taiwan ordered vaccines, only to have them not show up. They had to trade chips from TSMC for access to vaccines. This is the same as China using political influence and corruption to keep Taiwan out of the WHO.

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
Fosun bought the distribution rights in greater China. Pfizer bought the rights in the rest of of the world outside of Europe. BioNTech retained the rights inside Europe. The Taiwanese government knew exactly who to call up to order the BioNTech vaccine - Fosun. For political reasons, they refused to do so. Instead, they knowingly tried to get BioNTech to breach its contact with Fosun. When BioNTech predictably decided not to, the Taiwanese government acted outraged and made a big media affair out of it. > They had to trade chips from TSMC for access to vaccines. No, that's not what happened. The founder of TSMC stepped in to buy vaccines from Fosun, so that the Taiwanese government could claim it hadn't done business with Fosun, a mainland company. This was a face-saving measure for the Taiwanese government. After declaring that they would never buy vaccines through a mainland company, they couldn't easily climb down, so the TSMC founder acted as an intermediary.