Back in February, as the world was beating a path to Taiwan¡¯s door for help to tackle a shortage of semiconductors, the health minister got into a scrap with China over COVID-19 vaccines.
Beijing, he suggested, had used political pressure to derail Taiwan¡¯s plan to purchase 5 million doses directly from Germany¡¯s BioNTech SE, rather than via a Chinese company which held the rights to develop and market the BioNTech-Pfizer Inc. vaccine across China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying retorted that Taipei ¡°should stop hyping up political issues under the pretext of vaccine issues.¡±
Three months later, Taiwan is paying the price for a lack of vaccines, with a surge in virus cases that threatens to trigger a lockdown. Having successfully sidestepped the first COVID-19 wave, the government now faces a health emergency ¡ª only about 1% of its population is vaccinated so far ¡ª with the potential to disrupt the chip industry that dominates the local economy, and which is critical to an already-squeezed global supply.
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