No, America isn't "provoking China" or "threatening war", so please cut the horseshit

Greetings from the northeasternmost part of the United States! I’ve been aggressively trying not to blog, and surprisingly, recent news regarding Taiwan has made that easy. I have little to say about the Laguna Woods shooting; it’s a pure tragedy and it feels base to analyze it. Regardless, the most important thing to note about it is the violence inherent in a “unificationist” agenda, which has already been covered quite well. COVID? Sick of it. 

But there is something I want to address in the wake of Biden’s affirmative words on Taiwan, which is the completely preposterous reaction. To be fair, I can see how any given American voter with no ties to Taiwan and a tenuous grasp on the issue might object. 

Certainly, if you see it as yet another military conflict far away that will drain your country’s resources, or are committed to an anti-war stance on principle, you’re likely to oppose such a move. I don’t agree with this stance per se — “They came for [people who are not me] and I said nothing, now who will stand up for me?” —  but I understand it.

There’s been another reactionary wave, however, which is as predictable as it is disappointing: accusing the US of provoking China, rather than naming China as the obvious provocateur.

I’ve seen this from bootlicking genocide denier and tankie clown Caitlin Johnstone, who baldly lied when she called Biden’s words “directly threatening a hot war with China”.

Everyone shit their guts out for weeks when Trump made some asinine tweets about North Korea but Biden repeatedly threatening direct hot war with China while waging a world-threatening proxy war against Russia is just fine normal stuff.

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) May 23, 2022

He was not. He was asked if the US was “willing to get involved military to defend Taiwan if it comes to that”, and he said “yes, that’s the commitment we made”.

That is to say, if China starts a war, if China provokes a conflict, if China threatens Taiwan, then the US would be “willing” to get involved, “if it comes to that”, which sounds like strong language but really just means they’re not ruling out a possible defense of Taiwan if China provokes them.

You may not agree with that stance, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not a provocation. It’s fleshing out a potential reaction to a provocation by China. He strengthened that stance with a recent speech at the Naval Academy, but again, did not actively commit the US to a war in defense of Taiwan.

But Johnstone is a Grade A Useful Idiot, and her opinions do not matter. Far more disappointing are the reactions of people who are not only more relevant, but who honestly should know better.

For instance, longtime Taiwan expert Bonnie Glaser had this to say:

“We could actually provoke a Chinese strike against Taiwan…rather than deterring the attack, which is, of course, what President Biden hopes to do.”

She also said that “it might well provoke the attack that we are trying to deter because Xi Jinping could conclude that China should act while it still has a conventional advantage. He might feel pushed into a corner by a U.S. direct challenge to Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.”

I normally hold anything Glaser has to say in high esteem, enough to generally give her the benefit of the doubt, understanding that she wants the best for Taiwan as we all do. Keeping in mind that, if anything, I’m biased in Glaser’s favor, her words above are a pile of absolute horseshit.

Yes, it sucks saying that about someone I generally respect. 

First, while it’s true that the web of agreements, acts, assurances and communiques that makes up the United States’ deliberately ambiguous commitments toward Taiwan do not directly obligate the US to defend Taiwan in the wake of a Chinese attack, that’s not quite what Biden said, is it?

The Taiwan Relations Act gives the United States the policy go-ahead to consider a strong defense of an invaded Taiwan — “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

That means we’re not specifically obligated to defend Taiwan, but we have the policy-backed ability to be willing to do so, if it comes to that. That’s what Biden was asked, and that’s what he said we committed to. A willingness, a possibility, a potentiality. That’s hardly a rock-hard promise of defense at all costs. It certainly is not, as Johnstone fibs, a direct threat of hot war. Perhaps the language was a bit stronger than expected, but it was not out of line.

Secondly, again, the US is not the provocateur here. I can imagine scenarios in which US meddling might cause Country A to declare war on Country B, but whether you consider past conflicts to fit that mold or not, it’s simply not the case regarding China’s threats against Taiwan.

I don’t know how much clearer this can be: China is the one threatening a war. China is the one bullying Taiwan. China is the one intentionally buzzing Taiwan’s ADIZ and attempting economic coercion and electoral chicanery. China is the one who wants to start that war. If a war broke out, China would be the one declaring it. That makes China the government doing the “provoking”, period.

Even if you think Biden’s words were “provocative” (they weren’t), China is hardly the victim in this story. We can all sympathize with the kid who gets teased one too many times and finally throws a punch, but China’s the one threatening Taiwan. The US is a bystander telling them to stop, not taunting them into beating up Taiwan.

Let’s go deeper: even if you think China is some sort of victim of a big mean United States here, we expect more than playground reactions from world leaders. Xi Jinping isn’t some kid in junior high, despite often acting like it. You don’t react to the president of a foreign country saying they object to your expansionist, subjugationist national agenda by attacking another country. You shouldn’t attack another country at all unless they’re attacking you, or you’re aiding an ally. For any reason. Even if you think it’s “your” territory.

That’s something a bad government chooses to do, not something they are “provoked” into doing. If they don't want to be the villain, all they have to do is not attack. To say otherwise is, again, horseshit.

It’s dangerous horseshit, too: what exactly is Biden supposed to say? Are we supposed to hem and haw and mince our words to appease dictators who have their hearts set on mass murder? Are we supposed to point fingers at ourselves and say we’re the bad guys, when the CCP is the one escalating tensions and acting provocatively?

Do those who agree with Glaser and (ugh) Johnstone think the US should continue to be wishy-washy about Taiwan? How has that done anything but cause China to ramp up their bullying and increase their military expenditure with an eye toward Taiwan’s future subjugation? Are we supposed to pretend that “not directly challenging” Beijing’s claim will cause them not to act on that claim, when they seem to grow more belligerent, not less, about acting?

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps they believe that the CCP, less worried about the US’s reaction, will believe it can bide its time? If that’s the case, however, you’re just making the same mistake we’ve made for decades: handing China time to prepare for an invasion that they will absolutely undertake when they think they can win. You’re not deterring them, you’re giving them rope. Because again, they haven’t toned down the subjugationist tirades; they’ve ramped them up.

Glaser said one more thing that pissed me off:

Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund, said Taiwan’s government “focuses on the president’s declaration that he will defend Taiwan” [ed: he didn’t say that] “which they welcome because it provides reassurance to their public and boosts support for the ruling party. They ignore the rest.”

No, it does not merely boost support for the ruling party. It is the general consensus of the people of Taiwan that they do not wish to be annexed by China. Yes, there is a wide range of opinions and not all agree; that’s what it means to have a free society. But generally, it’s the most common belief and that’s not likely to change. In that way I suppose it provides reassurance, but that’s not just a political tool of the DPP — it’s the will of most Taiwanese.

As for “they ignore the rest” — the rest of what? That it could make China angry? Again, at what point does the assurance that 24 million or so Taiwanese will not be abandoned to a genocidal horror show of a government trump the desire to lick boots for a “peace” we cannot guarantee, because we wouldn’t be the ones starting the war? 

Let me be clear: even the best people can spout horseshit. This doesn't mean Glaser is a bad analyst or bad at her job. But on this point, she is wrong.

At what point do we realize that it’s China’s decision whether or not to invade, and regardless of what the US says, they could always choose not to start one? Are Taiwanese supposed to feel more reassured by the same old mealy-mouthed prevarication that has, for decades, emboldened China?

We know that the CCP is not above genocide and horrific political repression. They’ve proven that in East Turkestan and Hong Kong. We know that supporters of China’s plans for Taiwan are quite happy to “take the island, not the people” — a euphemism for the mass murder of anyone who resists Chinese rule. That is, most Taiwanese, as most do not consider themselves Chinese and do not want their country to be a part of China. We know those people are willing to act violently, frequently posting sick fantasies of outright massacre of Taiwanese.

Are we supposed to continue to give the bully more room to operate by refusing to say that we might step in if their harassment of Taiwan goes too far? Are we really so scared of Xi Jinping that our leaders cannot say one true thing: that China’s threats are unacceptable? Are we so beholden to cowardice that we truly cannot even speak, and any time we do it’s a “provocation”?

I genuinely struggle to understand how China always gets off so easy. Any other country treating Taiwan the way China does would be called what it is: a bad actor provoking tensions and threatening to start a war. We were the bad guys for invading Iraq. Russia is the bad guy for invading Ukraine. Hitler was the bad guy for invading everybody. European countries are the bad guys for their colonial histories.

And yet China is somehow a poor widdle baby victim who gets “provoked” by the Big Bad United States, even though they’re the ones invading Taiwan? How does that even work? Why do the normal rules for who provokes whom not apply?

I'm not the only one who thinks so, either:

Why is it acceptable in US Taiwan policy discourse for there to be such a thing as "provoking China." How did the CCP hypnotize experts with advanced degrees and decades of experience to plainly stipulate that China's actions aren't accountable to normal geopolitical physics?

— Pacific Standard 🚜🌻 (@PacStandardTW) May 25, 2022

It happens a lot, too. China commits a genocide, but the rest of the world are somehow stoking tensions for wanting to respond. Taiwan has an ADIZ and treats it like any other country who has one (including China!), but its very existence provokes China. China regularly issues bone-chilling threats regarding its intentions toward Taiwan, and yet we're all the bad guys for countering them because talking back “raises tensions?

It's all such fucking horseshit, and I am sad to see douchelord tankies and respected intellectuals alike fall for it, and even repeat it.

It is not a provocation to say that China’s constant bullying of Taiwan is unacceptable, and if it ends in China starting a war, the US might be willing to step in, or to point out that we do have the policy go-ahead to do so if we choose. The bullying, by China, is the provocation.

Again, the US is not the source of provocations here. China is.

A Taxonomy of Lies about Taiwan's Vaccine Situation

Razor blades in candy were always an urban legend, but I wouldn't take China's candy

Trust me, nobody wants to talk about a different topic more than me, but as long as disinformation is permeating discussions about vaccine access in Taiwan, it's important to make sure reasonable clarifications are available in English. 

I want to start by saying that I understand there is a lot of fear and anxiety right now. There's an outbreak in Taiwan that, while not growing exponentially, is still growing. It is probably controllable over a period of months, but that still means several months of worry, doubt, admonitions to stay home, and yes, some deaths. Hospitals are strained. There's a global vaccine shortage in most countries, while the US is flush with doses, and other countries have struggled to obtain them. 

That's a worrying situation to be in, and I don't want to diminish it even as I repeat my message to not freak out. 

It also presents a window: a time when Taiwan is trying to manage its outbreak while attempting to obtain vaccines which are in short supply globally. Eventually, Taiwan will get this under control and vaccines will be available, but we're looking at a timeline of months. That gives malicious actors plenty of time to disseminate disinformation, and for those lies to fester. And some unsavory political elements are trying to use that window to sow distrust in the Taiwanese government -- specifically Tsai and the DPP -- while calling for cooperation on the surface. These same elements turn and point fingers at the Tsai government for "playing politics". 

Anxious people may believe things that give them an outlet for their stress, so I'm not writing this to belittle anyone. It's pretty normal human behavior, and not all believers in disinformation are ill-intentioned. I do believe people are glomming on to this "we want BNT" storyline because it represents a type of hope. They want vaccines and these seem available. They're not, but that doesn't mean those who misplace their hope in these vaccines are bad, or wrong, and I don't intend to imply otherwise.

Rather, I just want to create a clear record in English to prevent further misdirection.

Let's take a look at each of these false claims about Taiwan's vaccine situation in turn, and then hopefully leave the topic behind for good. 


The national government is unfairly blocking local governments from obtaining vaccines on their own

The story here is that the CECC said earlier in May that cities and municipalities could procure vaccines on their own if they wished, and people are complaining that the CECC is "now" insisting that only the national government can procure vaccines.

This is genuinely confusing, so I don't blame anyone who perhaps skimmed this news believes that this is  a course reversal or about-face meant to take power away from local governments. 

The key point, however, is that the vaccines these local governments could potentially buy, and the distributors that sell them, still need to have been approved by the central government before the purchases can take place, and the batches themselves also need to be tested. This is usually done by the central government, and then after given the all-clear, a municipality could theoretically purchase these drugs on their own.

The central government noted, however, that the procurement procedures were complex and cumbersome, and would probably be challenging for a city to pull off on their own. Imagine if, say, Nantou City approached BioNTech, which rebuffed the Taiwanese government, or called up Moderna, which sold doses to Taiwan which are coming late due to a global shortage. What leverage does Nantou City have that Taiwan doesn't? Why would those companies sell to Nantou, not Taiwan? Do they have the resources to get through the procedure in the first place?

However unlikely, in theory, I suppose it could be done. 

The issue here is that the local governments trying to "buy their own doses" now aren't talking about buying approved batches from approved distributors. They're talking about the Shanghai Fosun doses, and Shanghai Fosun has not applied for approval to distribute their product in Taiwan. Therefore, they're not approved, and municipal governments cannot buy from them.

Hence, the government is clarifying that locally-procured doses and the brokers who sell them still have to go through the same Taiwan FDA approval process as everyone else. 

This limitation also applies to Terry Gou, who says he wants to purchase ten million vaccine doses. If he can do that through an approved channel and get those doses to the government for the required batch testing, then fine. It'd prove that the government could just throw around cold, hard cash -- but fine. 

However, if he thinks he can just buy whatever from any channel he likes and get those doses in Taiwanese arms without the usual approval process, he's dreaming.

By the way, there's an update to the Terry Gou story: the game continues. It turns out manufacturers don't want to sell to these various non-government-affiliated parties.

If these municipalities truly wanted to approach approved channels to purchase more vaccines on their own, I'd be very interested to hear the whether the CECC's answer might change given recent political hassles. It would actually make sense to centralize one's vaccine strategy given the current crisis to ensure the fairest possible distribution, but I hope the CECC would make that clear.

Tsai and the DPP are trying to keep out foreign vaccines to 'protect' the market for the Taiwanese-made vaccine 

This is obviously untrue. In fact, I'll go ahead and say it's a blatant lie. 

If it were true, why has Taiwan spent the better part of a year trying to negotiate for every foreign vaccine they can get their hands on, from AstraZeneca to Moderna to BioNTech -- millions of doses in all?

If uptake on these doses has been slow, it's because there's a global vaccine shortage and massive inequities in availability (the US, for example, clearly has plenty), and ordered shipments are taking longer to fulfill. Plus, it is absolutely plausible that China has been blocking Taiwan's attempts to secure vaccines. Taiwan only implied this before; now they've come right out and said it's the case. It has nothing to do with trying to 'protect' a local product. 

If the government were trying to 'protect' the market to ensure the domestically-produced Taiwan vaccine has enough takers, first, that would entail endangering lives and a full-blown COVID health system breakdown to possibly make money later on.

The Taiwanese government isn't perfect, but I highly doubt they'd do that -- you'd have to think of them as monsters. They're imperfect, but they're not monsters. (China, on the other hand, absolutely would do that to Taiwan and the CCP is indeed run by monstrous people). 

This "insider trading on the local vaccine" accusation likely arises from the extremely confusing story of Tungyang 東洋, a Taiwanese pharmaceutical company, which had been in talks with BioNTech and possibly, Shanghai Fosun as well (though I'm unclear on this). but pulled out for unclear reasons. Some say the amount of product offered for the price made for a poor business decision. It has been reported that at that time, the drug wasn't far enough along in clinical trials for the company to feel confident in the deal, whereas others say Tungyang dithered too long. Still others say that the government wasn't adequately supporting them (one would expect the government to commit to purchasing those doses from Tungyang, once approved). 

I don't know what happened, but it seems clear that if the Taiwanese government turned its back on these BioNTech doses to protect their own profits from local vaccine sales, then they wouldn't have tried so hard to procure millions of other foreign vaccines. Whatever is going on here, it isn't that.

In fact, it sure sounds like the sort of thing people who stand to make a lot of money on the Shanghai Fosun doses would say to divert attention from their own activities. (I can't prove that, however.)



But China can't block Taiwan's access to vaccines!

Yes, they can. 

I'll talk more below about how people came to believe that the only way Taiwan can access BioNTech vaccines must be through Shanghai Fosun, the Chinese company that claims it has rights to "Greater China". 

But first, Taiwan has every right to seek another distribution channel from the manufacturer, which can accept or reject this. Taiwan has now directly stated that China intervened in Taiwan's own negotiation with BioNTech, which again, it had every right to engage in.

This wouldn't even be close to the first time China has pressured an international organization or company to change how it deals with Taiwan, from excluding Taiwan from the WHO, trying to block international aid to Taiwan after major disasters, to pressuring airlines and IELTS and other English proficiency exams to call Taiwan "Taiwan, China".

The vaccine issue is no different.

If you think China can't do the exact same thing to a vaccine distribution contract, please think again.


Shanghai Fosun has the "right" to claim distribution for BioNTech in Taiwan, and the government is trying to circumvent them

This has a veneer of truth, but is ultimately false. 

Drugs available in Taiwan need to be approved by the Taiwan FDA, and are often batch-tested as well (this is certainly the case with coronavirus vaccines). Brokers and agents -- who may have the right to produce the same drug, or sell an already-produced drug from the original manufacturer -- also require approval. 

Fosun doesn't have this approval in Taiwan itself, so its "rights" don't exist here -- it can't just barge into the market at will. It still needs that TFDA approval.

For many drugs, multiple avenues of purchase are approved in Taiwan. If you're on any long-term medication, you might have noticed that the packaging and even 'look' of the drug changes, despite the actual drug being the same. For example, my main anxiety medication is lorazepam. It's usually branded as "Silence" -- small, white pills in bubble sheets. Then my hospital changed distributors and I still got lorazepam, but they were larger, yellow pills dosed out into sealed plastic packets (I don't remember the name, but it had changed). Now they're back to the familiar Silence. Once, I was given Ativan: tiny blue pills in gold foil sheets that are half as strong, and was told I can take two. Ativan is lorazepam in a smaller dose. Why? The hospital changed suppliers, but it's all the same drug.

It's very common, and a highly competitive business.

Approval, however, remains crucial. Even if the drug is not fake, if it's sold through an unauthorized channel, the government considers it to be "counterfeit". It doesn't matter if that distributor has an agreement with a manufacturer whose drug is approved in your country; the distributor also requires approval. Any pre-approval agreements are contingent on that process being completed.

What does this mean for Shanghai Fosun? That they may have "secured the rights for Greater China" including Taiwan from BioNTech, but there is absolutely no law or regulation stopping Taiwan from seeking out an alternative method of acquisition. BioNTech could always refuse, but they always have the right to authorize another distributor that is not Fosun.

It's not even that rare, and it sure doesn't seem to be a problem for Fosun or the CCP if the buyer is pro-China billionaire Terry Gou, who once called independence supporters "garbage".

That's why they talked to Taiwan in the first place, before backing out -- after pressuring Taiwan to remove the word "country" from the contract -- under what I can only assume was some sort of pressure or (ahem) aggressive incentivization. 

In fact, what Fosun has are the rights to sell a drug called "Fubitai", which is BioNTech's drug with a Chinese name. As far as BioNTech is concerned, it has no official Chinese name for its drug, that's a name Fosun is authorized to use. Taiwan has every right to seek out the same drug, not branded as "Fubitai". Another distributor for this drug is Pfizer, and Pfizer has no agreement with Shanghai Fosun. Although BioNTech might object -- meaning perhaps the contract would be rejected or there would be a fee -- there is no law prohibiting Pfizer and Taiwan from working together. 

Even Tungyang,  the Taiwanese company which tried to secure BioNTech rights but ultimately didn't (a long convoluted story that could be its own post), was not doing anything wrong by ultimately not working with Fosun. They might have made other mistakes, but talking to BioNTech was not one of them. Companies do it all the time. The only real issue here is that the government's messaging could have been clearer.

And this isn't even getting into the timeline of when Taiwan was or wasn't specified in the "Greater China" contract with Shanghai Fosun. I'm quite aware there's a story here and have my sources, but it's become increasingly clear that it doesn't matter. 


Taiwan "rejected" Fosun's offer of vaccines

Imagine if I applied to do a PhD at Harvard, but before I could even send in my application and proposal, the Dean of my preferred school called me up to tell me personally that she intended to reject me. 

That sounds like the sort of nightmare I'd have, but in the waking world it would be preposterous.

Well, so is this myth. 

The cold hard fact is that Fosun never applied to distribute those vaccines in Taiwan. I offered one possible reason why in my last post: basically, it would require a level of submission commensurate with approval by a national government. So by making such a submission, Fosun would in essence be admitting it is dealing with a national-level government. In other words, that Taiwan is a country. 

People have been complaining that Tungyang (mentioned above) didn't seem to think this was a problem, and that the approval should be fairly easy. However, Tungyang is a Taiwanese company that would be quite familiar with the approval process and regulations. Shanghai Fosun has never applied for such approval because Chinese drugs are banned in Taiwan. In fact, I'm not sure any Chinese drug company has gone through this process in Taiwan. 

Therefore, there's probably another reason Fosun hasn't applied: these doses are said to have been produced in Germany, so in theory, a Chinese company could apply to distribute them in Taiwan. However, Fosun has said they intend to start domestic production of "Fubitai" soon. As they would be Chinese-made, Fosun would not be able to sell them here. They'd be going through all that work for a one-time shipment of vaccines. 

So what is the incentive for Fosun to go through that process for a one-off sale?

Far more likely that it was a political ploy all along to attack the Taiwanese government in the window they have open to them -- when Taiwan is facing a crisis, and vaccine uptake has been slow.

That said, I would actually understand why the government wouldn't want to deal with Fosun. They seem dodgy at best -- complaining about not having rights they never applied for -- and I wouldn't want to deal with them either. It's likely Tungyang got spooked by them too. This might be the reason why the government now insists it will only talk to manufacturers directly: perhaps it got burned in these previous negotiations.

That doesn't mean, however, that Fosun was "pre-emptively" rejected.

I don't really know the full story behind why Tungyang's deal with BioNTech fell through, but it doesn't really matter. Perhaps the government could have supported Tungyang more. Perhaps it seemed wise in the moment to decide against the deal, as the vaccine hadn't been through all clinical trials. The government's own messaging on this could be a lot clearer.

Regardless, the company kicking up a fuss now is Fosun. And yet, they don't seem to be any closer to actually applying for distribution approval. 

You can just buy vaccines at Costco in the US, so why not do that?

This one is the funniest, but fortunately doesn't seem to be widely believed. And yet, there's always someone.

KMT Chair Johnny Chiang recently tweeted out a picture of a vaccination center available at Costco in the US, and KMT city councilor (and person who perhaps needs an intervention) Wang Hong-wei 王鴻薇 posted that if vaccines were so easy to get in the US that you could just buy them at Costco, shouldn't Chen Shih-chung just head to the US and buy out the stock?

I hope that I don't need to post a lengthy explanation of why you cannot, in fact, just go buy vaccine doses in bulk at Costco, right next to the Einstein's Bagels, tubs of oregano and massive graduation cakes.

Perhaps Wang is really that ignorant, but it's more likely that she's smart enough to know how ridiculous she sounds, but doesn't think her constituents are smart enough to see it.

I don't want to put every preposterous statement by every KMTer on the party as a whole. Wang is one city councilor. However, that's hard to do that when it's not just the grunts but the caucus whip saying Chen Shih-chung should be "executed" -- a method of governance the KMT is intimately familiar with, though you'd think they would have figured out was wrong by now. It's even harder when KMTers below him echo that sentiment.

However, with the KMT calling for cooperation with the government while continuing to undermine them at all levels, I have to wonder whether they're truly striving for cooperation or they're just a bunch of backstabbing Mean Girls.



It is possible for Shanghai Fosun to distribute their doses of German-made BioNTech in Taiwan quickly, but the government is blocking them

No.

It's not even clear these particular doses could make it to Taiwan. The approval process takes months, as you can see by the lengths of time some of these contract dramas have played out. At the latest, the doses in question expire by September. There's a very good chance they'd be expired by the time they were even shipped. Plus, it seems odd that Shanghai Fosun would just have all those doses sitting in a warehouse, knowing full well they can't sell them to Taiwan without going through the proper channels. There's a fair chance what they have is the option to buy the doses, not the drugs themselves. I can't prove that, however.

And by then, Taiwan would have other options available, including AZ, Moderna and the domestic vaccine.

Changing that timeline to get the doses here quickly would require changing the law to allow Chinese drugs into the Taiwanese market, and I know very few people who aren't deep blue unificationist extremists who think that's a good idea.

In any case, the main point here is that Fosun never applied to distribute its doses in Taiwan, but is complaining that it can't distribute its doses in Taiwan! The only way around this if Fosun continues its obstinacy is for Taiwan to just...pretend it doesn't have laws and allow Fosun to operate here the way it can in Hong Kong and Macau. 

Essentially, you can have these doses but the price is your sovereignty.

In other words, if you want those German doses of BioNTech, then pressure Fosun to submit the necessary data, samples and paperwork. 

They're the ones holding it up. But even then, it's a daydream to think these doses could possibly make it to Taiwan in time.

Chen Shih-chung is not being transparent about Taiwan's attempts to obtain vaccines

It's true that sometimes the information from the CECC on what vaccines are coming, where they're coming from and when seems unclear. By June, by July, some are coming, we're awaiting the next shipment, they're on order. It would be reassuring to hear something more concrete. The disparity between the number of shipments actually received and what Taiwan says it's ordered seem huge.

However, this doesn't appear to me to be a lack of "transparency". Again, there is a global vaccine shortage. Many countries likely have similar issues: millions of doses on order, but shipments coming frustratingly late. 

I don't have as much of a window into this world as I do into pharmaceutical approval processes (which I know a surprising amount about despite not working in the field, because I've listened to dozens of presentations on just this issue). I would imagine, however, that there are a lot of harried phone calls, negotiations and favors, wheedling and requesting, cases being made, and back-and-forth in order to ensure that at least some of what's on order is received in a timeframe that can ensure the government seems to have the issue under control. 

It's very hard to put this sort of constant negotiation into palatable words for the public. Nobody really wants to see how sausages are made. Information is great, and we need as much as possible. Said in just the wrong way, however, too much information provides fodder for the KMT to call you weak, bureaucratic, slow or ineffective. They're probably just trying to maintain public trust by not raising a fuss (and everyone's blood pressure) about the actual mechanics of vaccine procurement in a time of crisis and shortage. 

One thing I do think they could do better isn't so much transparency, but messaging. The Tsai government still has one key weakness: they don't announce their victories clearly enough. This feels very cultural to me, in a particularly Taiwanese (and perhaps Japanese) way. The KMT seems to have no issue announcing successes regarding things they haven't even done all that well! Clearer messaging on how hard they are working to get all of this to happen without showing the whole sausage might help, but it has to be done carefully.

Chen Shih-chung is not trying hard enough to obtain vaccines (and is satisfied with 'second-rate' ones)

See above. Pay attention to the actual numbers involved when the CECC talks about what it's been trying to order, and how they waited quite some time to go from "implying" that China blocked their access to BioNTech to outright stating it. 

It's quite clear that this is a monumental, difficult and frustrating task. AZ came first because that's what we could get, not because Chen thinks Taiwanese don't deserve the best vaccines. The shipments are slow, again, because of a global vaccine shortage and access inequities. 

I'm not even sure Chen sleeps at this point. That's how hard he is clearly working.

The outbreak is in part due to the Tsai government being 'complacent' about vaccination drives

This is completely backwards. 

The government procured the vaccines it could, and tried to get them out to frontline workers and other priority groups. It was the lack of local transmission at the time that stymied the drive, not complacency. (The area where they made the big mistake was the shortened flight staff quarantine and not ensuring adequate security at quarantine hotels.) 

People didn't want the shots because they didn't think they needed them. 

So, rather than be complacent about that, the government opened it up to just about everyone. It's true that many people who could have simply signed up for a self-paid shot didn't because they didn't realize that nobody was going to follow up on their "reason", but at the time, it made sense to create a small barrier to ensure there wasn't a stampede for vaccines, to ensure that doses would still be available for the priority groups should they change their mind. 

Once it became clear that the local outbreak was a real problem, the government immediately changed course, and now those vaccines have been given to priority candidates. 

That is not government complacency. It's the government trying to include normal human behavior into their vaccination strategy.

A new study on Sinopharm offers evidence that it's more effective than previously thought, therefore it definitely is (and thus we should consider allowing it into Taiwan)

I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but as the most reprehensible unificationists in the KMT are trying to use the "let the German BNT doses in!" talk as a gateway to calling for Sinopharm (and other Chinese drugs) to be allowed into Taiwan. This would essentially mean changing the law. 

Not that unificationists and malicious CCP actors see it that way. Having helped create Taiwan's vaccine problem -- and make it seem like more of a failure than it really is in the media -- they offer a "solution": use our Shanghai Fosun/BioNTech vaccines, and here are some Sinopharm ones too! Just issue a "permit". Forget that you have your own FDA and approval process. Forget that Chinese drugs are banned by law in Taiwan. Let us treat you like Hong Kong and Macau! 

It's a poison apple: take it, and watch your citizens' willingness to get vaccinated plummet and pay for it with your sovereignty. Or refuse it, and we continue to attack you for not doing "enough" to procure vaccines.

At around the same time this attack started up, a study came out showing Sinopharm may be more effective than previously thought. However, it is unclear how much protection it provides against severe symptomatic cases or how well it works for older patients. At the same time, the Seychelles, which has the most vaccinated population in the world (it helps that it's a small population), is seeing a fresh outbreak. About 60% of vaccinated individuals in Seychelles received Sinopharm; the rest received AstraZeneca. Although most cases were among the unvaccinated or those who'd only received their first dose, it's still troubling that vaccinating most of a country's citizens with Sinopharm does not appear to be enough to reach herd immunity. 

Generously, I would call this data inconclusive. That one study is fantastic. It's one study. I'd like to see some replication, especially given the situation in the Seychelles.

Now, I actually want Sinopharm to work. In so many countries, it's the only option, or one of the only ones. China, Thailand, Seychelles, half of all available doses in Hong Kong: Sinopharm. With WHO emergency approval, the number of people who will receive Sinopharm will only rise. Those people deserve to be safely vaccinated as much as anyone else. I do hope the doses they have received are effective, as any human would.

That said, I accepted AZ but would refuse Sinopharm. I personally do not trust any drugs from China, nor the government under which they are produced. 

I also do not think the law should be changed or temporarily suspended to allow Chinese vaccines (or any drugs) into Taiwan. I honestly do believe the CCP is evil enough to tamper with the supply, because China is an existential threat to Taiwan. It is in their best interest for Taiwan to suffer. 

As such, I don't even really think the Shanghai Fosun doses should be let into Taiwan. But certainly, whatever data might say about Sinopharm, Taiwan should never, ever trust the CCP or any drugs it attempts to bring into Taiwan.

I don't know the percentage of Taiwanese who'd be willing to take the Fosun-brokered BioNTech doses made in Germany if they could. There's no data. But we do know that willingness to take Chinese vaccines is very low: less than 2%. All those Chinese business executives claiming "Taiwan compatriots" want Chinese vaccines -- and not clarifying the doses in question -- are deliberately dodging this clear fact. 

In fact, if the Taiwanese government were to allow Fosun's German doses in, they'd probably have to ensure they remain separate from any supply where patients don't get to choose which vaccine they receive, as it may impact willingness to make an appointment at all. If the allowed Chinese-made vaccines in, that would cause even more of a problem. Afraid they'd be injected with a Chinese-made vaccine against their will, registrations might well plummet. If they went ahead with the procurements anyway, they'd have to be very clear about messaging: that you'll only get these shots if you specifically sign up for them. 

It's smart for the government to refuse to play this game.

Yes, this is political. But the threat is real, and unique to Taiwan.

Vaccines, Sovereignty and the Hanging Thread

In my last post, I explored how Taiwan safeguarding its sovereignty was a major reason why it could not simply accept vaccines from Shanghai Fosun, a Chinese company. Something about that storyline has continued to bug me, though: 

The other thing this article doesn't mention: according to Chen Shih-chung, the Taiwanese government hasn't received any official application to sell these vaccines in Taiwan. How can the government agree to offer a product if the company that wants to provide it hasn't even asked the Ministry of Health and Welfare if they can do so?

It's a bit of a loose thread. Why haven't they applied?

They say they've been "promoting these vaccines since last year" for Taiwan, but this is the first we've heard of them. I find it very hard to believe that this due to the Taiwanese media and government keeping quiet. What is there to keep quiet if Fosun never went through the proper channels to offer the doses here in the first place?

Although anyone with a healthy distrust of the CCP -- which ought to be everyone -- might be tempted to automatically reject any notion that vaccines of any kind from China are acceptable, it bears at least asking: should Taiwan accept this offer of vaccines given the very real threat facing the country?

This is a legitimate question, especially as the vaccines in question are not the ineffective Sinovac/Sinopharm vaccines, but the highly-regarded Pfizer/BioNTech ones. 

After considering that question -- not dismissing it out of hand -- I still believe we should not play China's game.

So let's start with the application that the Taiwanese government said it never received. Couldn't this all simply be fixed if Fosun were to go through the process as it's meant to be done? Why didn't they?

A partial answer is contained in a post I came across while writing my last piece, from an executive at Pfizer (it doesn't say that in his Facebook bio but it's easy enough to find out.) I didn't think about it much until today, but perhaps I should have: 

其實复星從德國進口的BNT162b2，可以循正常管道向台灣TFDA申請BNT162b2在台EUA，复星已經花錢買了輝瑞half-ownership 的data ，為查驗登記用的，不過一旦送了，复星和中國處心積慮吃台灣豆腐的政治操弄，一個中國的泡泡就會被吹破⋯⋯因為台灣「另一個國家」和港澳「地區」不同，所以biologic license submissions (BLA)   送案的程級不一樣，复星幾乎可以在港澳，經過較簡單的流程，很快直接送上市。但在台灣必須有各種疫苗(生物製劑)進口審查規範。基本上：复星BLA送案等同「外商」。 也就是說：中國复星=外商 ⋯⋯面對台灣是一個國家，獨立自主審查，那复星和中國辛辛苦苦經營吃台灣豆腐(一中泡泡)的目的就被吹破了！

不知道复星背後的大人態度如何？不過如果台灣要買，复星就得送。但是送了，「一個中國」泡泡就破了，所以复星不知道敢不敢送? 

Note: the original post has since been deleted (it probably got too popular for a pharma exec's comfort zone) but I think the snippet is useful, so I'm keeping it here.

I don't think I'm quite capable of a good translation so let me summarize the key relevant point. Basically, according to the contractual relationship between BioNTech and Fosun, the vaccine is an imported product from Germany, not a domestically-produced drug, so getting government approval requires the contracting company to purchase global research data that it can include in its application.

So far, China hasn't actually approved it for use in their own "mainland" even though Fosun has (presumably?) paid for this data already. However, it was a relatively simple process to offer it in Macau and Hong Kong, as those are territories of China. So, the licensing agreements and approval processes are at the regional/territorial level. 

Taiwan, on the other hand, has its own application procedures, which Fosun would have to go through to get it approved and distributed here. In addition, as Taiwan is a country, the licensing level -- the level of approval needed for biologics -- is different from Hong Kong and Macau. From Taiwan's perspective, not only is the vaccine itself an imported product, but Fosun is a foreign business, and has to go through the approval process as a foreign entity, not a domestic one.

Even if the BioNTech vaccine itself had already been approved, this particular batch would need to be tested as we can't be 100% sure it's not defective, and distributors need to be approved as well. This is why importing 'in parallel' (importing a real drug that has been approved, but not through an approved distribution channel) is considered the same as selling counterfeit drugs, even if the product itself is 'real'. 

Obviously Taiwan thinks this application procedure is quite normal, but to China, it might well be unacceptable.

If Fosun actually applied in good faith through the regular channels, it would be tantamount to admitting that they recognize that Taiwan is a nation with its own licensing and approval procedures, as evidenced by the level of submission required. There would be no way to do this while still pushing a "one China" narrative. 

That isn't great for China, which allegedly blocked the initial Taiwan/BioNTech deal, almost certainly so that it could then push BioNTech to include Taiwan in the deal it made with Fosun regarding Hong Kong, Macau and China. 

Taiwan never had any say in this deal, so as far as the Taiwanese government is concerned, it's meaningless. 

So rather than apply through regular channels to distribute these doses in Taiwan, China has chosen to kick up a media and disinformation firestorm to make the current government look bad.

Put another way, Fosun claims to be the distributor for Taiwan, yet never applied to distribute this drug in Taiwan. And yet the CCP is pushing the media and KMT to make a big stink about Taiwan not 'accepting' it.

It's convincing, too.  You're too passive! Don't Taiwanese deserve the best vaccines? Why should we settle for second-rate AZ doses? This is all political, you just don't want to buy from China! are all extremely persuasive arguments in a time when people are anxious and stressed out. 

Much better to not apply, wait until the expiration dates are near to create a sense of anxiety -- you know, hurry now or you'll lose this hot deal! Your window of opportunity is closing fast! -- then get your media and KMT muppets in Taiwan to kick up a fuss that precious time is being wasted and Fosun has been "promoting" these doses "since last year", even though nobody in Taiwan has heard anything (?) about them until recently. 

That's highly suspicious. Would you trust doses offered to Taiwan under those conditions? Because although I do speak from a place of privilege (I've had my first dose of AZ), I wouldn't. 

Why, then, doesn't Taiwan reach out to Fosun and invite them to apply? Then we could test the product here and decide if it's safe. 

There are a few reasons why that's not a good idea: 

First, regarding vaccines, Taiwan doesn't approach brokers (I also believe this is a general rule, but don't take my word for it). They approach original manufacturers such as BioNTech. 

These processes aren't particularly fast, and they're difficult to expedite. The laws are quite clear (I've spent enough time with pharma people in Taiwan to know that, and that the Taiwan FDA does not play around with drug approvals.) Approvals take months, not weeks; companies celebrate if they can shave such approvals down even by a fairly small margin, and doing so takes a very convincing case. 

With rumors flying that these particular doses are defective -- again, I can't verify this so please don't take my word for it -- there's no convincing reason to expedite approval. In fact, there's a very good case for applying extra caution. 

In other words, ignoring all of China and Fosun's political games, by the time those doses could possibly get approved, they'll be expired.  The only way to avoid that is to circumvent the approval process completely. 

This is exactly what China wants, because China's approved them in Hong Kong and Macau -- their territories. Allowing that approval to include Taiwan (which I believe is what the China-negotiated contract with Fosun says) without Taiwan doing its own legwork is functionally the same as allowing China to treat Taiwan as a region or territory under its control. 

What's more, by the time they get approved, all of the other vaccines Taiwan has coming its way will already be here. The sense of urgency to get these particular shipments is fabricated. Yes, we need vaccines as soon as possible, but we were never going to get these particular ones faster.

In other words, if you believe Taiwan should do everything in its power to get those doses, congratulations, you've just sold out Taiwan's sovereignty.

It also raises the question of whether approval now would allow Fosun to sell this vaccine in Taiwan long-term; short-term approvals do not exist as far as I know. With Fosun claiming it intends to manufacture this drug in China at some point, it's worth considering whether we want to take the risk that a China-produced vaccine could end up in Taiwanese arms.

And this is leaving aside the fact that this is only an issue because China decided to make it one. Taiwan had a deal with BioNTech, and China wrecked it just so it could pull this stunt. Even if we ignore that playing China's game means letting China win, you can't ignore the very clear national-level processes that make this deal a non-starter. 

Another reason not to trust these doses is that accepting "one time only" that China can push Taiwan around opens the door for them to do it again. China believes this is the way it should be; they won't treat it as a special circumstance. They'll go back to all their international business partners and point out that they've successfully negotiated for Taiwan before -- which would be true if we allowed this -- and convince them it's acceptable to do again. International businesses are already quite happy to bend over for China, so this won't be difficult. There is absolutely no way to win this: the only way to win is not to play. 

The final reason is quite simple: Taiwan has its own vaccines coming, either domestically or through foreign agreements.

The Fosun/BioNTech doses were never going to make it here in time, and other options will be available soon. This was never anything more than a chimaera, a disinformation attack. Don't fall for it. 

So, again, here's what I think is going on: 

China doesn't care whether Taiwan gets them or not. If Taiwan accepts them on China's terms, then China wins. If Taiwan rejects them and the outbreak rages, China still wins.  They waited for an opportune moment to make it seem like China is trying to "help" Taiwan, and allow the media to again attack Taiwan for obstinately refusing this "help" with an issue that only exists because China helped create it. 

If China did genuinely intend for Taiwan to receive vaccines, rather than playing politics, it should have just applied to do so properly. Or it could have simply not stood in the way of Taiwan acquiring vaccines on its own.

China didn't do either of those things, and that tells you all you need to know. It's playing with smoke and mirrors, not making a genuine offer. 

This is all a media stunt -- block Taiwan's own vaccine acquisition efforts, and then allow the media to do what it does best, and blame Taiwan for problems China foisted on it.

I don't think China intentionally let a stockpile of vaccines near their expiration date as some sort of deep-level conspiracy to smear Taiwan's reputation. Rather, I think some of the more competent hatemongers in the CCP saw an opportunity and ran with it: Taiwan's outbreak, its currently rather low supply of unpopular vaccines and the fact that more vaccines might not arrive until later this summer at the earliest all provided them with a window to attack Taiwan right when it was weakest, and use something it already had on hand -- expiring doses that Hong Kongers don't want -- to make the government look bad. 

In other words, China and their various allied sellouts in Taiwan are making it look like Taiwan is faced with a closing window of opportunity -- act fast or these vaccines will be GONE GONE GONE! -- when in fact China's the one with the closing window. 

Anyone in marketing knows this game: the false sense of urgency created to get you to ACT NOW! is actually fulfilling a need on the creator's part, not the customer's. 

Taiwan will get this outbreak under control, and it will gain access to vaccines, either domestically or through other foreign partnerships. The only time China could have possibly acted was now, and they did. This opportunity will soon disappear, and they know it. 

China is also foisting the "playing politics" smear on Taiwan to cover for its own actions. China's attempts to block Taiwan's own vaccine acquisition programs not only endanger Taiwanese and international public health, they are intensely political. They're using any leverage they can find to try and discredit the Taiwanese government. When the government pushes back and refuses to budge on critical issues of drug safety and national sovereignty, the CCP and their associated mouthpieces (including the KMT) use that to accuse Taiwan of being the one to "play politics". 

But of course, it is precisely the opposite. It's gaslighting to the utmost degree. They make it sound like Taiwan is playing with people's lives, when China's the one doing that.

To sum up, the question of whether these Fosun vaccines should be acquired by Taiwan is legitimate. It deserves some inquiry.

But ultimately, I strongly believe the answer is "no". In fact, I don't even believe it would be possible to do so if we wanted to. 

All that's left, then, is the media stunt. The attack on Taiwan's government, to make it look "passive". 

In short, and highlighted for emphasis:

I'm highlighting this for emphasis:

China created the problem by blocking BioNTech's deal with Taiwan. It then allowed a Chinese company to negotiate with BioNTech for "rights" to Taiwan distribution, without asking Taiwan.

Then China stepped in to offer a solution to the problem it created: allow us to treat you just like Hong Kong and Macau and circumvent your own government's regulations and approval processes, and you can have these vaccines which we blocked you from obtaining independently.

Then China created an extra sense of urgency, got their political and media puppets in Taiwan to scream at the government over it, and put all the blame on Tsai and the CECC.

It was always a game. Don't fall for it. 

Taiwan's problem isn't vaccines -- it's China (or: Reuters Sucks Again)

Lizards try to hide, but you can see them if you look closely

There's a big stink right now about Taiwan refusing BioNTech doses from Fosun, a Chinese company. To show you what's going on, allow me to deconstruct a half-assed Reuters article which is basically just copied from Xinhua (a propaganda arm of the CCP, not an actual news organization). 

This propaganda garbage from Beijing with no Taiwanese perspective whatsoever starts here:

Fosun signed a deal with BioNTech to exclusively develop and commercialise COVID-19 vaccine products developed using BioNTech's mRNA technology in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

BioNTech's development and distribution partner for the rest of the world is U.S. firm Pfizer Inc.  

What they don't say: why on Earth would anyone believe a Chinese company had the right to ink a deal with a foreign company over distribution rights in Taiwan?

Imagine if an American company signed a deal with a Swiss company to be the sole distributor of a product in Canada, without ever actually asking the Canadian government. 

Of course, we know why they did this: to try and force Taiwan to accept a Chinese-made deal, as though Taiwan were a part of China and had to abide by whatever contracts China signed. 

Is it any surprise that Taiwan is resisting this?

This isn't clarified in the Reuters piece because the quotes are lifted from Xinhua, the CCP's main propaganda outlet. The Reuters copy barely reads as original work. 

As a Facebook friend noted, Fosun doesn't produce this vaccine. They were provided with a huge number of doses -- or the option to buy them, it isn't clear -- and have said they intend to produce it locally in the future, but as of now they have access to millions of doses they cannot sell in China, because they're not licensed to. This is because China is sore that the rest of the world doesn't want its crappy domestically-produced vaccine -- it's a pride issue, they don't want to admit that the European vaccines are far better. 

Notably, the original deal appears to include doses for Hong Kong and Macau, not Taiwan (I've also asked around my local network as I know a lot of pharma people, and I'm not the only one who's noticed this).

Why was that deal later changed to include Taiwan (which I am quite certain happened)? Nobody seems willing to say, and Reuters doesn't seem particularly interested in finding out.

They do seem to be rather interested in what Fosun chairman Wu Yi-fang told Xinhua, however: 

 

Wu said certain groups in Taiwan he did not name had been in touch for an emergency purchase of vaccines and the company was willing to "provide vaccine services to Taiwan compatriots".

"Taiwan compatriots" are not a real thing, but I digress.

Who are those "certain groups"? There is another name for them: compradores. Basically, rich Taiwanese business assholes who are willing to sell out their country so they can get richer. They probably stand to make a lot of money off of this Fosun deal. I've had personal run-ins with such people, and simply calling them "business assholes" is about as nice as I am able to be. Taiwan would be better off without them; I wish they'd just go live in their ugly mansions in China and leave this country alone.

In other words, "certain groups" is a phrase doing a lot of heavy lifting here and I'm not sure Ben Blanchard, Lincoln Feast and the Beijing newsroom are aware of it. 

It doesn't take a huge leap of logic to figure out which "certain groups" pressured which officials to include Taiwan in this big Fosun/BioNTech deal. I know "follow the money" is a cliche, but come on. Follow the damn money.

Did Reuters call a single soul in the Taiwanese government to ask what Taiwan's view of this was? 

I bet you an ugly mansion in China that they did not. 

Since last year, Fosun has been promoting vaccines for Taiwan, Wu said, adding they hope shots can arrive on the island soon to help prevent a resurgent spread of the virus.

If China really cared about getting vaccines to Taiwanese they would not have blocked the deal Taiwan was trying to make with BioNTech to begin with, you business asshole. 

Fosun did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

So, Xinreuters, when Fosun didn't call you back (and you knew they wouldn't), why didn't you call up any of the myriad people in Taiwan who would have talked to you about this country's perspective? 

Taiwan's government has said it is talking with BioNTech rather than Fosun, and that the two sides were on the verge of announcing a deal in December when BioNTech pulled the plug.

Taiwan has implied China was to blame for the failed deal, while China has blamed Taiwan for trying to circumvent Fosun.

Taiwan never agreed to be serviced by Fosun, and China has no right to force them to be. That's not "circumventing", just as I am not "circumventing" FamilyMart by going to 7-11 because I think their fantuan are better.  

The other thing this article doesn't mention: according to Chen Shih-chung, the Taiwanese government hasn't received any official application to sell these vaccines in Taiwan. How can the government agree to offer a product if the company that wants to provide it hasn't even asked the Ministry of Health and Welfare if they can do so?

It's almost as though Fosun, like the CCP, is pretending the Taiwanese government simply does not exist, while at the same time painting it as the entity creating obstacles.

In essence, it's a way of trying to force the Taiwanese government to accept, through backdoor maneuvers, that China has the right to negotiate for it.

There's another piece of information that doesn't quite fit neatly anywhere but I believe should be included: a Taiwanese company (Dongyang) was at one point looking into becoming the Taiwan distributor of this vaccine. There were questions about the cost, which the company would bear, compared to the quantity they'd acquire, and Dongyang pulled out. Was the markup too high, and if so, why (the article mentions that Chinese companies have a lot of power and this might have had something to do with it)? Should the Taiwanese government, knowing vaccines were needed, have stepped in and borne the costs? Was pulling out of the deal a mistake and if so, whose? 

I don't have answers to any of those questions, but it's worth noting that Fosun was not always considered by anyone to be the only possible distributor for BioNTech in Taiwan.

Finally, while all of this has been going on, Zuellig Pharma -- a company with offices across Asia, including Taiwan -- announced a deal in late April to supply much of Asia including Taiwan with the Moderna vaccine. The idea that Fosun is the only pathway to mRNA vaccines for Taiwanese is simply false, but Reuters doesn't seem particularly interested in that, either.

Of course, this has made its way into the Taiwanese Fake News for Aunties and Uncles network. Various critics -- including former KMT legislator and unificationist trashbag Tsai Cheng-yuan (Alex Tsai) called Chen "too passive", saying he has a "bad mentality", that he buys "inferior vaccines" (the truth is that Taiwan purchased the vaccines that were actually available to them). 

They cry out, "do Taiwanese only deserve inferior vaccines?" and point to the fact that currently, the Fosun vaccines are in fact made in Europe, not China (for now). Of course, critics neglect to mention that that might not always be the case.  

Apple Daily added that DPP legislator Wang Ting-yu is saying these doses are mostly set to expire in June or July and that Hong Kongers don't want them. There are rumors that they're defective reported by both Apply Daily and UpMedia, I can't verify the veracity of that accusation. Let's be clear: this could be fake news. Others have said the expiration is September -- the different dates are probably related to different batches.

That Hong Kongers don't want vaccines has been true for awhile, by the way. It's not vaccine hesitancy, as BioNTech is available. One does not need to get Sinovac (though about half the doses available are Sinovac, so someone has to get them and I wouldn't want it to be me). The trust issue is not with vaccines, but with the government. I don't blame them. If the Chinese government told me I needed to do something, I would endeavor to the best of my ability to do the exact opposite. And I love vaccines: I got AZ voluntarily! 

This has trickled down into my local community. I don't go out much due to the recent outbreak, but I do get electro-therapy on my back. While there, various aunties and uncles at my rehabilitation clinic have been complaining that Taiwan should just buy these vaccines. From the media, they seem to have the impression that it would be an easy negotiation for safe vaccines and Chen and "the DPP" are just being obstinate.

Chinese media seems happy to perpetuate this and make it seem like Taiwan simply doesn't want to buy from a Chinese company. And there are media consumers in Taiwan who are lapping it up. People are worried about this outbreak and looking for reasons to criticize, and to be fair, the CECC has not come back with a strong campaign to clarify the issue.

Of course neither the KMT (though they are not the only critics) and the CCP are ignoring the fact that 'taking' these doses -- and how would the government even so that if Fosun hasn't applied to offer them here? -- would be a de facto abrogation of Taiwan's sovereignty. It would, in effect, be admitting that the Chinese government has the ability to preside over a deal made with a Chinese company to distribute vaccines in Taiwan, and at no point do any Taiwanese officials need to be involved. 

You do see how that is an impossible path for Taiwan, yes?

It's not a surprise that Alex Tsai is a sort of compradore, or at least compradore-adjacent, and the KMT and CCP are essentially in cahoots -- at this point I consider to be the KMT a puppet or wholly-owned subsidiary of the CCP -- so of course this is how it would play out.

Let me summarize for you what I think is really going on here: 

China is looking for ways to maximize vaccine diplomacy but is aware that it's domestically developed vaccine isn't very effective, and isn't wanted by the rest of the world. They know perfectly well that Taiwan won't accept it either. Some business assholes stand to make a lot of money if a company like Fosun can acquire and sell millions of vaccine doses, or produce it locally. 

So they inked the deal with BioNTech, but pride kept China from actually allowing these doses to be offered. So they played a long game of acquiring them "for Hong Kong and Macau" while quietly pushing to end Taiwan's own deal with BioNTech. After that succeeded, they quietly added Taiwan to the list, without actually talking to Taiwan. In fact, Taiwan might have always been the goal: not only does "refusing" these doses they were never officially offered make Taiwan (and the DPP) look "passive", but if Taiwan did accept them, they'd be basically abrogating their own sovereignty. 

Or, perhaps, faced with an oversupply of vaccines Hong Kongers don't trust for a variety of reasons, they decided to use them in a campaign to attack the DPP's image. Or maybe they haven't actually acquired the vaccines (there's no confirmation the doses are in Shanghai) but are using this as a way of stirring up an anti-government media frenzy in Taiwan, with their KMT friends helping out. But this is a weak and slimy argument if the doses aren't even in China, and we don't know that they are.

Either way, China wins.

So now, China can try to claim the "high ground" by saying they have good vaccines from Europe and want to help, but obstinate, difficult, troublemaker Taiwan doesn't want them. They make it sound humanitarian, but of course, they're the ones who blocked the initial deal.

And this isn't even getting into the question of whether anything sent over by China is trustworthy. I wouldn't take an injection offered by the CCP, even if they say it came from Europe. Would you?

They ensure this makes it into the Taiwanese news by getting some of their KMT muppets to make emotional arguments at a time when Taiwanese citizens are feeling ignored by the world, distrustful of the AZ vaccines available, worried about the current outbreak, and wanting someone to blame. What worried news watcher wouldn't be moved by an outcry that Taiwanese deserve the best vaccines available at such a stressful time?

(I will not go so far as to imply that the CCP engineered the outbreak in Taiwan. Not that they wouldn't try; they absolutely are that evil. I'm just not convinced they're quite that competent and the Novotel/Wanhua teahouse sources of the outbreak are plausible and likely.)

These same news reports elide the fact that a lot of people are looking to get very rich, a lot of the sovereignty issues are not being reported on accurately, and neither the Taiwanese nor the international media seem interested in reporting the whole story. 

In fairness, the government has made some mistakes with Taiwan's pandemic response. Frontline workers should have been encouraged more strongly to get the vaccines available. Pilots should not have been given shortened quarantines. We had a year to figure out how to do mass rapid testing should the need arise. But I would give Taiwan an A (not an A+) on its overall response, while the rest of the world gets a C, D or F. And although mistakes have been made, this is not one of them.

In other words: shame on you, Reuters, and your "writers" in the Beijing "newsroom".

The Chinese invasion question should not be a binary

Regardless of what the future holds, preparedness is smarter than complacency.

There's been renewed interest recently in the question of whether China will invade Taiwan. That's not particularly interesting in itself; this debate pops up every few years, people duke it out, and we go back to living our lives. But what has caught my eye is how binary the whole conversation seems to be: either China will invade or it won't. 

I wince at this rhetoric, even if on that spectrum I fall closer to the will end than the won't. I also see that the wills are, in fact, talking more about likelihood and preparedness than actually beating the war drum. The wont's seem to think the situation is concerning but ultimately not dire, and more a projection of US fear than reality.

So, it also worries me that the won'ts seem to be getting more press and are painting the wills as warmongers who think Chinese boats are coming next week, when they're not and they don't. I don't think the two sides are equally problematic, to be honest.

Regardless, the whole debate is pointless.

Both sides seem to think the other is doing Beijing's work for it. "Stop fearmongering that an invasion is coming because Beijing's entire goal is to drum up just that fear" and "failing to take Beijing seriously just helps them prepare for an invasion while we're all on a picnic" lines are two sides of the same coin. 

But there are a whole host of more important issues that more people should be taking seriously outside that binary.

Worry more about the overall likelihood than the timeline

First, that China probably is intending to invade -- not tomorrow, next week or even next year, but someday and likely within our lifetimes. The reason why there's so much uncertainty is that not even they are sure when it will happen. There is active intentionality if not a clear timeline, and they'll do it whenever they feel they need to, and think they can.

It's likely that China is intending to subjugate Taiwan but is planning on mostly unconventional warfare: through cyber-attacks aimed at destabilizing the government and economy. The painful truth is that they're already behind most current attacks, so there's ample evidence they will continue and even escalate in the future.

The 'now' matters more than hypotheticals

It doesn't matter whether China is actively planning an invasion with a clear timeline and capacity agenda. They are engaged in massive military buildup, aggression in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan. Therefore the will they/won't they talk is pointless: we should take their current actions seriously in their own right. Their future plans matter less than the fact that they are a bully now, they are aggressive now, and they are trying to claim the world hegemony title now. 

And if you hate US hegemony, oh boy wait 'till you see what China as top dog would be like.

Therefore, whether China actually invades or not, Taiwan and its allies need to be very clear that any attempt to invade will be catastrophic. The only way we can be fairly sure they won't is through deterrence. This means not undermining Taiwan's confidence in itself -- for deterrence to be successful, there needs to be a clear willingness to fight back. It also means ensuring that Taiwan is valuable enough to the world that others will come to its assistance.

Military invasion may be a future issue, but the increase in military aggression, the cyberattacks noted above and some very serious espionage cases that in at least one instance posed a direct threat to President Tsai's life are all pressing issues now.

but China's ability to terrify enough Taiwanese voters and possible international allies into going against their own interests is an issue now. This is where you get weird outcomes like voting against asking the IOC to let Taiwan compete as "Taiwan" even though no one likes "Chinese Taipei", blaming Taiwan for the end of Chinese tourism even though that was Beijing's decision, or turning the whole issue around and pointing at the DPP as troublemakers "angering" China when in fact China's the one choosing to throw strategic fits.

Invasion or not, China is still a huge problem

The main issue isn't necessarily figuring out how active China's invasion plans are, but that we have no idea because nobody knows anything about China. The lack of transparency, in and of itself, is reason enough to be concerned. In countries with deep systemic issues (which is all of them) the key difference is whether we know about them or not. In more transparent societies, the issues are known, debated, protested, and although it's an agonizingly slow process with almost as many steps back as forward, the tools exist to shed light on problems and work to solve them. None of that exists in China, so rather than worry about "what they're going to do", we should simply be worried about the fact that we can't possibly know.

Incidentally, you can tell that this is the case because there are still ignorant people out there who deny the existence of the Uyghur genocide, but nobody denies the existence of the situation at the US border. The closest we get are Republicans who acknowledge the situation but don't think it's a problem. This is because we have the tools to quickly and accurately know what's happening at the US border; uncovering genocide in East Turkestan has required more digging.

Whether China 'can' invade is not the point

It doesn't matter whether an invasion of Taiwan is a good idea, or whether China has the capacity to follow through. 

As a friend said on Twitter, Xi Jinping is clearly high on his own supply, and that makes Supreme Leader Winnie the Pooh a bad news bear indeed. And when you get someone that cracked up at the top, with that much power, you get situations where subordinates who know better will still say and do what they need to (literally) keep their heads from rolling. That could mean an ill-advised invasion of Taiwan, and the "when" and "if" matter less than the fact that the conditions are there, and they are roiling. 

On a related, terrifying note: it may be currently to Taiwan's benefit that China keeps misjudging how its actions will be received, such as the pineapple import ban or the end of Chinese tourism in Taiwan. However, that China doesn't seem to be aware, or to care, how its actions reverberate -- they genuinely don't seem to understand how deep Taiwanese identity runs, for instance -- means that they don't care about international reactions and may be badly misjudging how quickly they can subjugate Taiwanese people. That's what happens when you smoke your own crack, and don't think this scenario hasn't played out before. 

Tellingly, China doesn't care what the world thinks. Its "wolf warriors" exist to pump up nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens; they were never to convince anyone else of China's rightness. It makes deflated attempts at soft power, but they aren't very good because the people at the top don't care much if they fall flat. The shitty rap videos don't need to be good; the people who finance them just need to report that they exist. 

And if a country has a leader whose lackeys will do anything to please him and doesn't care what anyone else thinks, then the will they/won't they talk on invading Taiwan is completely pointless. 

Why? Because that situation is scary right now.

When someone tells you who they are...

What does all this mean? Frankly, whether or not China has concrete plans to invade matter less than their signaling a clear intention to do so at some point. That signal is being sent now, so we should take it seriously...now.

These are all things we should be more worried about than a will or a won't -- a binary question better suited to a sitcom romance. But the fact is that these simplified perspectives generate good headlines that publications love to run. 

I said in the beginning that I lean more on the will than the won't side, however. Let me offer an explanation. You know that old saying -- when someone tells you who they are, believe them?

China is telling us who they are. There is plenty of evidence that they're willing to fight a war to subjugate Taiwan; the CCP has literally said exactly that. There is nothing underpinning the claim that it's mostly hot air; the best one can do is show that it might not happen particularly soon. Yet even that is unclear. 

So it makes sense to take China at their word. It makes sense to talk about Taiwan's willingness to fight. We should be preparing for all of this -- and for any and all contingencies. Preparing sends a signal which may or may not act as a deterrent, and also ensures that, well, we are prepared. Whether China will or won't invade matters less than the fact that it's still a threat, and the answer to that is never complacency.

I'm not worried that a harder line will simply inflame them more. They're already planning for this. They won't attack because they've been provoked; they'll attack because they want to and think they can. 

And it's not necessary to be a will to believe Taiwan should be prepared. All you need to understand is that China is scary now, and that's a clear and present danger in its own right.

The wills hope they're wrong

I understand the desire not to buy any of this, however. One sleeps easier at night thinking it's not a real danger. It gives one room to say that we should focus entirely on domestic issues (a position I'd love to agree with, but cannot -- China isn't the only issue but right now, it's still the primary one). 

It allows one to ignore all of the ways listed above, short of outright invasion, in which China is still a threat. That means not having to deal with complexity. So tempting! It means not having to wrestle with the righteousness of fighting for Taiwan for its own sake, versus the fact that the world doesn't have a great track record of getting involved in virtuous fights and Taiwan will indeed need to make itself valuable to the world if the world is going to support it. That feels gross; it feels realpolitik. It's hard to merge it with one's ideals. I've struggled with it too. 

And, of course the won'ts have every reason to desire that their predictions be correct. The wills very much hope they are wrong. 

It doesn't matter, though. Will or won't matter less than intention, and I don't have to believe that China will invade to believe that we should understand their intentions. The future matters, but not as much as the present. They matter less than all of the horrible things the CCP stands for and the fact that Beijing is an enemy we don't and can't understand: they are intentionally opaque. 

The CCP is a threat now. They are engaging in aggression and espionage that threaten the core of Taiwan's democracy now, and their crackpottery and opacity are creating problems now. 

They've told us who they are. We should believe them.