The top priority of every government right now should be assuming and maintaining control of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, especially in areas hit hard by the crisis. In a time where leaders should forego grievances between nations and work towards open and transparent cooperation for the sake of global public health, China’s conviction to harass and persecute Taiwan is striking.
Statements from Chinese public health officials and medical records show that had the government taken the virus more seriously upon its initial discovery, it may not have spread so far or fast. Instead, the government decided to squander and falsify information, seizing frontline workers who tried to sound the alarm on incoming danger, and ensuring a media blackout of the situation.
It was Taiwanese authorities who alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about possible human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus on December 31, after catching wind of a new type of pneumonia developing in Wuhan thanks to expats living in the city. China had alerted the WHO of the virus on the same day, but did not forewarn of potential community transmission. Taiwan says its warning was ignored. Thanks to lessons learned from the SARS pandemic, which killed 73 in Taiwan between 2002 and 2003, Taiwan took swift action, which began with health inspections of incoming passengers from Wuhan beginning on December 31, followed by the ejection of Chinese tour groups on January 25 and a ban on all Chinese visitors from February 6.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s influence over the WHO meant the agency did not heed Taiwan’s warnings early on. Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control reported that COVID-19 was being transmitted person-to-person on December 31, after contact with medical compatriots in China. The information, however, was not published online or relayed to other nations by the WHO. Beijing demands the WHO does not treat Taiwan as an independent state. It encouraged the organization to retract Taiwan’s position as an observer to the World Health Assembly in 2016, blocking Taiwan from providing and receiving critical information on developing global health issues.
Despite abundant evidence China had silenced frontline whistleblowers at the outbreak of the virus, which may have been a key turning point in stopping the pandemic, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lauded the country for its containment efforts in early February. As a result, critics lashed out at his deference to Beijing, with a petition calling for his resignation still gaining traction.
The WHO then preceded to publish false information about the number of coronavirus cases in Taiwan, which authorities allege were artificially inflated by Beijing—the main channel of communication between Taiwan and the agency. When called out by a U.S. ambassador to the UN, who said the WHO should deal with Taiwan directly, a Chinese delegate retorted, “Taiwan is part of China, this fact cannot be changed” and said the Chinese government is committed to protecting the health and well-being of the Taiwanese. Taiwan’s success in containing the virus has been extolled globally, and as a result, the country was invited to participate in an online WHO meeting between February 11 and 12. Beijing falsely claimed it gave the nation permission. Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou 歐江安, however, snapped back, saying that Taiwan arranged its participation directly and said it “did not need China’s approval.”
The WHO is now saying it is working with Taiwanese health experts after a video went viral in which a senior official claimed not to hear a question from a reporter asking him about Taiwan’s membership status, then appeared to hang up on her.
Several charter flights to evacuate Taiwanese stranded in Wuhan have been permitted, but these also did not come without Chinese meddling. The first flight on February 3 contained one passenger confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 and three others with fevers, which the Mainland Affairs Council said “created a tear in virus protection.” Both sides argued about the repatriation process, with China wanting to send a larger number of people over across several flights, while Taiwan maintained that it could not cope with the quarantine numbers. An evacuation flight on March 12 was delayed after China attempted to add 30 passengers not on the original list of names, claiming that there was “enough room in the cabin.” The passengers were not provided with protective clothing as Chinese authorities said that this was “unnecessary,” although the entire flight crew wore hazmat suits. Beijing then blamed Taiwan for “obstructing” the repatriation process by not allowing the additional 30 passengers on the plane.
Amid this tit-for-tat and the epidemic proliferating within its borders, China still found time to arrange air drills off the coast of Taiwan beginning February 8, with Chinese military planes circling half of the island. Fighter jets returned the next day, crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and into Taiwan’s airspace, which the Ministry of National Defense scrambled to monitor and ward off. More Chinese warplanes were seen off the island’s south-east coast on February 27, and the People’s Liberation Army flew its first nighttime drill around Taiwan on March 16, which Taiwan’s defense ministry quickly dissipated via a radio transmission. The drills likely came as a result of Taiwan rattling Beijing over the evacuation plans.
In addition to this, from as early as January, messages designed to spread fear and panic erupted across social media platforms in Taiwan. The Taiwan FactCheck Center identified false online claims that the virus had already spread to Taiwan on January 10, a likely bid to affect voter turnout prior to the January 11 presidential elections. Since then, manipulated images of news footage from Taiwanese media outlets proliferated across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Weibo claiming the Taiwanese government has been lying about the number of domestic COVID-19 cases and the total death toll. Nick Monaco, head of the California-based Digital Intelligence Lab, told BuzzFeed News that there was no evidence of Chinese state involvement. However, the cyber persecution would fit in line with efforts by Chinese actors of initiating multichannel attacks on Taiwan during sensitive times. It is notoriously difficult to determine whether or not cyberattacks from China are state-sponsored. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu 吳釗燮, for his part, seems to believe it may be a government effort.
All of this tells us that while the rest of the world scrambles to take control of a situation that has already infected more than 721,000 people and killed more than 33,000, China is still prioritizing politics over the pandemic. There are still many Taiwanese trapped in Wuhan, and negotiating their evacuation is extremely difficult when China remains opaque on the how the situation is developing within its borders. This experience has hopefully highlighted the ineptitude of international organizations when Beijing is essentially at their helm, and that the Chinese government are not only undependable, but completely irresponsible when it comes to the health and safety of global citizens.
Taiwanese experts are now working with partners in the U.S. on the research and development of rapid tests, vaccines and medicine. Outside of the medical field, the government has coordinated flights to evacuate citizens from hotspots abroad regardless of nationality. While China is providing assistance to Italy, and both its public and private entities have offered assistance to other countries, there are still questions of whether these moves may be politically motivated. Italy is, after all, China’s biggest ally in the European Union and become a bridge into the continent for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative last year. If China were to set aside political differences and work for humanitarian purposes with Taiwan, there would be no impediments on international agencies, and a more efficacious scenario would play out globally.
(Cover photo via Taiwan Presidential Office, CC BY 2.0)
