During a Lunar New Year’s Day visit to Xingtian Temple in Taipei on Feb. 12, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told reporters that, in his opinion, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should no longer refer to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan pneumonia” (“武漢肺炎”). He also opined: “If China offers [Taiwan] a [COVID-19] vaccine, the government should not decline the offer out of hand.” Members of Taiwan’s pan-green camp immediately gave Ma a verbal dressing down for his double standards and apparent tone deafness, given the hostile and intemperate language Chinese officials regularly employ toward Taiwan. Indulging an enemy is asking for trouble, they said. In stark contrast, the pan-blue camp doubled down on Ma’s statements, including arch-Sinophile and pro-unification fanatic Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who accused Tsai of using “discriminatory language.” The KMT has clearly decided to push the narrative that the phrase “Wuhan pneumonia” should be shoved down the memory hole. “Wuhan pneumonia” first began to be used as early as last year when a mysterious new coronavirus — which causes contagious diseases like SARS — began to spread from the central Chinese city. Almost immediately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda machine sprang into action to eliminate use of the term. In February last year, the WHO’s leadership group — which has close ties to Beijing — named it “Coronavirus disease 2019,” or COVID-19 for short. It is important to remember that in China and in international media at the time, the terms “Wuhan pneumonia” and “Wuhan disease” were in common use. Several days before the WHO officially designated the disease COVID-19, Chinese officials and state media appeared to anticipate the move, and started to refer to the disease using the term. In Chinese this actually translates as: “new coronavirus pneumonia” (“新型冠狀病毒肺炎”). Following the discovery of coronaviruses last century,
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) has said that Taiwan has secured almost 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with the possibility of obtaining as many as 45 million. Even though this news comes several months after other nations have obtained vaccines, it is nevertheless light at the end of the tunnel. However, to administer the vaccines would mean four to nine times more injections than for the 5 million flu vaccinations every year, and this is as hospitals and clinics administering flu vaccines are frequently inundated. The situation would be many times more fraught when administering a COVID-19 vaccine, which is exacerbated by the two-dose regime, with the second given a month after the first. These factors mean that the vaccination program requires meticulous planning. Even if Taiwan has the supply, it will take time to vaccinate a significant portion of the population, which is sure to have a major effect on the economy, society and health. With the exception of those in rural areas, the majority of Taiwanese enjoy ready access to medical resources — they can easily get vaccinated at a hospital or clinic. Until now, pharmacists at local drugstores have provided the general public with most of their needs, but have not been required, nor should they have been, to administer vaccines. In addition, drugstore pharmacists are prohibited from diagnosing or treating people, while hospital pharmacists are only responsible for procuring and managing vaccines, and reporting any adverse reactions. Recently, Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists’ Associations president Huang Chin-shun (黃金舜) proposed that pharmacists could offer assistance in the vaccination effort, with three considerations: First, do authorities have access to sufficient labor and resources, especially when some vaccines require special storage facilities, which not all hospitals or clinics have? Second, the International Pharmaceutical Federation has said that pharmacists in more than 30 countries have been
Support pineapple growers From tomorrow, China has banned imports of pineapples from Taiwan. It is a confusing decision and people in Taiwan have problems understanding what the motivation behind the ban might be, although that is no longer important, as it is unavoidable. Instead, what Taiwanese have to do is find ways to help pineapple growers make it through this crisis. Anyone who goes to a market for their vegetables and other items knows that pineapples are cheap at the moment. It is common to find prices of two for NT$50, and I have even heard that some places sell three for that price. Not only are these pineapples huge, they are also top quality. A friend of mine once brought me dried pineapple that she made herself. It was fragrant and sweet, without the slightest hint of excess acidity. Moreover, packaged dried pineapple is small and quite expensive, while fresh pineapples are not. Making dried pineapple at home would take care of excess fruit and, more importantly, would help pineapple growers. Liu Hsiu-fang Kaohsiung
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In August 2019, Sophia’s hip was broken in clashes with Hong Kong police during a protest against China’s encroaching control over the territory. In December that year, she was beaten again, and by last year, she became convinced that the authorities were going to arrest her. The 18-year-old took the difficult decision to leave her studies and family, and head for London. Now Sophia, whose real name has been changed to protect her identity, is sleeping on a couch 10,000km from home, stuck in bureaucratic limbo and unsure of her fate. As Hong Kong is a former British territory, the UK has taken the lead in responding to China’s imposition of a National Security Law in the territory, by offering a path to British citizenship for eligible residents. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government expects hundreds of thousands to make the leap to safety and perhaps a new life on a British National Overseas (BNO) visa, helping the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the reality is different for some of the most vulnerable. While affluent Hong Kongers can make the move relatively easily — rich buyers from Hong Kong snapped up almost one in 10 homes in London’s wealthiest areas last year — some of those who took part in the protests are falling through the cracks. About 200 young Hong Kong democracy advocates had come to the UK as of earlier this month, said Krish Kandiah, the founder of UKHK, an organization that includes a network of hundreds of churches ready to help arrivals from the territory. “Some of them are not eligible for the BNO visa or they can’t afford it,” Kandiah said. “It would be tragic if the route designed to help Hong Kongers fearful of political persecution is unable to benefit those who need it the most.” That is the case for Sophia, who
Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele was busy last year. In February last year, barely a year after taking office, he marched soldiers into the congressional chambers to intimidate the ostensibly obstreperous legislature. He stopped shy of a coup apparently because God told him to stand down. A month later, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he sealed borders and ordered a severe lockdown, shunting about 16,000 violators into insalubrious quarantine camps. The detentions generated 1,600 human rights complaints and more COVID-19. When the constitutional bench of the Salvadorean Supreme Court demurred, he defied it too, three times. Yet while Bukele’s heavy hand drew rebuke from the likes of Human Rights Watch and media watchdogs, most Salvadoreans applauded. So strenuously, in fact, that his allies are poised to capture a majority — perhaps even a supermajority — in a legislative election today. Securing two-thirds of congressional seats would allow Bukele to name Supreme Court judges and the attorney general, making him the most powerful Salvadorean leader since the return of democracy three decades ago. “This is a once-in-a-generation sort of clout,” Economist Intelligence Unit analyst Giancarlo Morelli said. To be sure, other Latin American countries have seen such power plays before. From former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori’s autogolpe to former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s permadynasty, overreach by elected leaders is one reason that democracy has fallen into ill repute in the region. What is disturbing in El Salvador is how few voters seem unperturbed by its demise. A recent poll in San Salvador, the capital, found that more than 30 percent of those surveyed agreed that an authoritarian government might be necessary “in some circumstances,” at least 70 percent believed that the country functions better under “strong authorities,” while 61 percent favored “mano dura” or hardline governments. El Salvador is not alone. Bottom-feeding populists, hyperfragmented political
The Canadian parliament on Monday passed a motion saying that China’s human rights abuses against the country’s Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang constitute “genocide.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far avoided using the word genocide in regard to Xinjiang, but if he did, it would begin to generate solidarity among G7 nations on the issue — which is something Trudeau has called for. Former US president Donald Trump used the word genocide regarding Xinjiang before leaving office last month, and members of US President Joe Biden’s administration have been pushing for him to make the same declaration, a Reuters report on Tuesday said. After labeling its actions as genocide, the next question is what countries will do about China. A Politico report on Monday said that campaigners in the UK are pushing for British lawmakers to amend the kingdom’s Trade Bill so that it restricts trade with China and other countries guilty of such crimes. Canada played a crucial role in establishing the International Criminal Court and “became the first country in the world to incorporate the obligations of the Rome Statute into its national laws when it adopted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act on June 24, 2000,” its Web site says. The act prohibits anyone suspected of involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide of entering Canada. This would affect the operations of China’s representative offices in Canada. Given the implications of recognizing China’s actions in Xinjiang as criminal, Ottawa should rethink its position on the “one China” policy. Members of the Canadian parliament — including Judy Sgro, Michael Cooper, James Bezan, Peter Kent, Steven Blaney and Pierre Paul-Hus — have publicly expressed support for Taiwan. In May last year, then-Canadian minister of foreign affairs Francois-Philippe Champagne expressed support for Taiwan, writing in an e-mail to The Canadian Press:
Taiwanese are SOON to get COVID-19 shots, so medical personnel, government officials and the public should consider the finer points of vaccination information and scheduling. Accurate facts can be found, but they are frequently published next to false rumors, even in news outlets viewed as trustworthy. EU news media have been reporting on adverse reactions and side effects experienced by medical personnel who received the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. German magazine Der Spiegel ran the headline: “The vaccine that nobody wants: Fears of AstraZeneca could have dangerous consequences.” The headline is misleading because it emphasizes some people’s fears, when a closer look shows them to be unfounded. Among the three most commonly used COVID-19 vaccines, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been administered to the largest number of people in the greatest number of countries, which underscores the amplification effect of myths, misinformation, complaints and resistance by a small number of medical personnel. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has compiled data from the WHO on the frequency of side effects following injections of the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. The most frequent side effect was pain at the injection site, followed by fatigue, headache and muscle soreness. The least frequent side effects included physiological and clinical symptoms, such as chills, joint pain and fevers of up to 38°C. These symptoms have been reported at much lower frequencies for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine than the other two vaccines — in the language of science, the differences are statistically significant. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has two other advantages: It is the cheapest of the three, and it is easier to transport and store (between 2°C and 8°C in regular refrigerators, compared with minus-25°C to minus-15°C in special freezers). The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be quickly shipped to international medical institutions using transportation equipment available in many countries. These advantages
As the US marks one month under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the conversations around Taiwan have shifted. As I discussed in a Taipei Times article (“No more talk of ‘bargaining chips,’” Jan. 30, page 8), with the end of former US president Donald Trump’s administration — and all of the unpredictability associated with it — Taiwan would not have to worry about being used as a “bargaining chip” in some sort of deal with the People’s Republic of China. The talk of Taiwan being used as a bargaining chip never subsided over those four years, but under Biden, those two words do not need to be used anymore. Early messages and signals from the Biden administration demonstrate continued US commitment to Taiwan’s security. From last month to this month, the conversation about Taiwan has shifted again — from Taiwan being a “bargaining chip” to Taiwan bargaining its chips. This year, news stories abound about Taiwan and its importance in the global supply chain of semiconductors, specifically chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The big news has been the supply shortage of automotive chips, with the problem escalating to point where German automakers had to slow production. German Minister of Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier appealed to Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) in a letter to assist Germany in getting access to more automotive chips manufactured by TSMC. Following this development, Taiwan needed to ask for the German government’s assistance in obtaining vaccines produced by German companies. At the time of writing, it appears that the issues are being addressed: Wang spoke with TSMC about the chip issue and Taiwan is supposed to receive its vaccines shipments. TSMC is working on alleviating the chip shortage, but executives have said that they are already operating at full capacity. Fixing the supply issue is about “reprioritizing” and
US President Joe Biden’s conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and his announced foreign policies show that, in addition to military and ideological opposition and containment, the US’ competitive strategy toward China includes suppression of high tech and trade competition, and cooperation in selected areas. The main focus is to maintain peace, liberty and openness in the Indo-Pacific region, resulting in the Biden administration calling on Taiwan and China to engage in meaningful dialogue. Given the new relationships among Taiwan, the US and China since Biden’s inauguration, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has made adjustments to the national security team, and is striving toward cross-strait and regional peace, backed up by improved national defense capabilities. The question is how Taiwan can engage in dialogue with China when they do not have equal international standing. Furthermore, the only goal of China’s Taiwan policy is to annex Taiwan and it relentlessly demands that Taiwan accept a “one China” consensus. Surely the US government knows that China is unwilling to accept the political reality of the Republic of China on Taiwan and looks on Taiwan as a local government that it expects to annex. As the US fears a war in the Taiwan Strait and wants the two sides to engage in dialogue, it must recognize Taiwan diplomatically and help it to join the UN. That is the only way that Taiwan’s international standing can equal China’s and the two countries can engage in talks on cross-strait peace. When US Department of State spokesman Ned Price urged cross-strait dialogue, he referred to “meaningful dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected representatives” — a far cry from former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s “Taiwan’s president.” Even if the US government fears igniting a war across the Taiwan Strait and refuses to amend its “one China” policy — and the view that Taiwan
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Some fled after the US-led invasion of Iraq, others during sectarian bloodshed and more following militant attacks. The country’s past two violent decades have hollowed out its Christian community which dates back two millennia. After first settling in the fertile plains of Nineveh Governorate before heading for the busy boulevards of Baghdad, more than 1 million Christians have in more modern times been uprooted by Iraq’s consecutive conflicts. “By the age of 24, I had already lived through and survived three wars,” said Sally Fawzi, 38, an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic, who left her country more than a decade ago and is now living in Texas. Some members of the Christian community escaped to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, others waited in neighboring Jordan to emigrate and resettled in countries as far away as Australia. Many lost hope in their homeland long ago, but see the visit by Pope Francis — the first-ever papal trip to Iraq scheduled for next month — as an important opportunity for him to use his voice to garner international support for Iraqis of their faith. Iraq’s Christian community is one of the oldest and most diverse in the world, featuring Chaldean, Armenian Orthodox, Protestant as well as other branches of Christianity. By 2003, when then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was toppled, there were 1.5 million Christians in a country of 25 million people, or about 6 percent of the population. However, as Iraq’s population mushroomed, the percentage of the minority shrank. Today, 400,000 Christians remain in a predominantly Muslim country of 40 million people, Hammurabi Human Rights Organization cofounder William Warda said. Among those who left, nearly half a million resettled in the US. Others ended up dispersed in Canada, Australia, Norway and other parts of Europe. Rana Said, 40, had tried her hardest to stay. Her aunt and uncle were killed in 2007, when US soldiers blindly
At his village along a “poverty alleviation road” in China’s Hunan Province, farmer Liu Qingyou shares a booklet detailing how Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government has hoisted him and 100 million other Chinese from the breadline. In it, the cause of his family’s hardship is diagnosed as “illness” and “schooling,” followed by a list of ways the government has helped, from grain subsidies to improving the yield of their orange groves. Authorities in 2014 designated his family as impoverished as Xi ramped up a “targeted poverty relief” strategy that sent Chinese officials door-to-door to assess poorer households. For Liu, the following years brought another boost: a new road cutting through Hunan’s mountainous countryside, helping transport produce to market twice as quickly and giving valuable links to nearby towns. However, it has not been a smooth journey up China’s economic ladder. Liu said that his harvests have not improved despite efforts by local authorities to help him diversify his crop. Meanwhile, his wooden house does little to keep out temperatures that plunge close to the freezing point in the winter. From his vantage point, Liu and his family of five still live modestly, and he worries for their future — despite being counted as lifted from poverty. “We can get by, but our house is bad,” he said. He wants what some others have received from the state: resettlement or enough funds to build a brick home. The reasons he did not qualify are unclear to him. “Why can’t we have the same?” Liu asked. China’s decades-long war on want has yielded remarkable results. “Over the past 40 years, China’s economic growth has resulted in more than 800 million Chinese escaping extreme poverty... This is an extraordinary achievement,” World Bank country director for China Martin Raiser said. In 2015, Xi vowed to eradicate extreme poverty by last year, a pillar of the Chinese
With a mass vaccination program inoculating millions around the globe, the world appears to be turning a corner in the battle to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, giving hope that sometime this year, societies might return to a semblance of normalcy. As nations gradually transition from firefighting mode into an investigation phase, more questions will invariably be asked about the virus’ origins. Earlier this month, a team of WHO experts finished a one-month probe into the origins of the pandemic. The team is in the process of compiling its report. However, there are already many indications that, predictably, the investigation was stage-managed by Beijing, and that the report will be a whitewash. Following months of painstaking negotiations with the Chinese authorities, the team finally touched down in Beijing on Jan. 14. After spending 14 days in a quarantine hotel, the team was left with a mere two weeks to carry out its investigation. Needless to say, Chinese officials kept a tight leash on the investigators, controlling the itinerary, their movements and who they were allowed to interview. On the second day after the team was let out of isolation, their Chinese minders took them to a new propaganda “museum,” which spins a Chinese Communist Party-friendly narrative of Wuhan’s struggle to control the virus, replete with giant portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Speaking to Reuters, Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert and team member, disclosed that China refused to furnish investigators with crucial raw data from 174 cases during the early phase of the outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019. “That’s standard practice for an outbreak investigation,” Dwyer said of receiving such data. In lieu of the data, the team was simply provided with a “summary” by Chinese officials. Dwyer said that gaining access to the raw data is particularly important, as only half of the 174
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) remains in its discontented state of disarray, searching for direction. To any distant observer, it might not seem that bad, but a closer look proves otherwise. Start with the surprise return and acceptance of former member Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康). After nearly three decades from his bold break with the party, Jaw has suddenly decided to come in from the cold. Why? In 1993, he had left the KMT to help form the New Party, a distraught group who felt that the KMT had lost touch with its primary goal of returning to China, and bringing Taiwan with it, of course. The New Party grew, but quickly peaked. It gained 21 seats in the 1995 Legislative Yuan and 46 seats in the now defunct National Assembly before suddenly running out of steam. It has not held any seats in the legislature for more than a decade. Yet few KMT members, in accepting Jaw back, even thought to ask why this is so. Instead, Jaw simply decided to come in from the cold. Surprisingly, he is showing few signs of repentance, remorse or a change of heart. As soon as he was accepted back in the fold, he announced that he is considering a run for the party chair and also willing to carry its banner in the 2024 presidential election. Say what? Do KMT members really imagine that his return is a positive sign? Are many suggesting that he is the next messiah? What is their central thought? More has followed, pouring gasoline on this bonfire of the vanities. Recent two-time loser par-excellence Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) quickly endorsed Jaw for party chair. Han, for anyone who has been out of the nation, is the same one who won the Kaohsiung mayoralty in 2018 and almost immediately afterward decided that his imagined popularity merited abandoning that position and
In my job as a neurologist, I usually see elderly and disabled patients. On many occasions, I have witnessed how patients and their family members treat their foreign caregivers with disrespect. When I ask about a patient’s home situation, accompanying family members often give irrelevant or unclear answers. When I turn to the foreign caregiver who looks after the patient day and night, they often look at the family members first, and then give a timid answer. It is often the case that the information they provide is very helpful in forming a diagnosis, because they are the key people when it comes to the patient’s care. Unfortunately, they do not seem to have the respect of family members or the people they care for. I have always felt that what medical professionals can do to help elderly and disabled people is limited — the people with the real ability to affect their quality of life are the foreign carers, who look after them in their home 24 hours a day. Sometimes, when a patient leaves the clinic, I cannot help thanking the hardworking caregiver in front of the patient’s family member for their conscientious care, and saying that the patient looks much better than last time. Unfortunately, the language barrier means that the caregivers sometimes do not really understand what I say, but they seem to be pleasantly surprised by the expression in my eyes and my smile. A few years ago, music professor Tseng Dau-hsiong (曾道雄), a good friend of mine, wrote an article titled “Angels from the equator” for the electronic newsletter Platform of Doctors and Patients (醫病平台), which we initiated together. The article talked about how much he appreciated the help of the family’s Indonesian caregiver. In the article Tseng also made an angry call for justice, saying that some Taiwanese do not give due
Fixing land tax The Ministry of Finance is reportedly planning to amend the combined capital gains tax for housing and land sales in an attempt to address housing speculation. The proposed method is to extend a one-year capital gains tax window, meaning a 45 percent tax on housing and land sold within two years of purchase. The tax would also be applied to domestic legal entities to prevent investment firms from speculating. Heavy taxation on housing speculation is feasible, but not perfect, because it can be bypassed by setting up an overseas company. In other words, the policy would catch the small fry, but let the big fish off the hook. High capital gains taxes on housing and land sales will not increase supply, and is therefore not the best way to suppress prices. Because speculators can avoid taxes by delaying reselling, it will reduce supply, and as demand would remain unchanged, prices would go up. That might mean that it would be impossible to suppress speculative demand. These views are intended to highlight the relationship between policy methods and goals, not to block the proposed amendment. In the long-term, the proposal would increase tax revenue and suppress small-scale speculation. However, effectively eliminating speculation requires other methods, such as taxing property ownership through land and housing levies, as well as a hoarding tax, to force speculators to sublet or sell empty housing. Lee Chi-sheng New Taipei City
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In the past, shareholder votes on the environment were rare and easily brushed aside. Things could look different in the annual meeting season starting next month, when companies are set to face the most investor resolutions tied to climate change in years. Those votes are likely to win more support than in previous years from large asset managers seeking clarity on how executives plan to adapt and prosper in a low-carbon world, according to interviews with more than a dozen activist investors and fund managers. In the US, shareholders have filed 79 climate-related resolutions so far, compared with 72 for all of last year and 67 in 2019, data compiled by the Sustainable Investments Institute showed. The institute estimated the count could reach 90 this year. Topics to be put to a vote at annual general meetings (AGMs) include calls for emissions limits, pollution reports and “climate audits” that show the financial impact of climate change on their businesses. A broad theme is to press corporations across sectors, from oil and transport to food and drink, to detail how they plan to reduce their carbon footprints in coming years, in line with government pledges to cut emissions to net zero by 2050. “Net-zero targets for 2050 without a credible plan, including short-term targets, is greenwashing, and shareholders must hold them to account,” said billionaire British hedge fund manager Chris Hohn, who is pushing companies worldwide to hold a recurring shareholder vote on their climate plans. Many companies say they already provide plenty of information about climate issues. Yet some activists say they see signs more executives are in a dealmaking mood this year. Royal Dutch Shell on Feb. 11 said that it would become the first oil and gas major to offer such a vote, following similar announcements from Spanish airports operator Aena, UK consumer goods company
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