Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Beijing exploits vaccines for profit

Yang Chun-chieh 楊峻杰

The unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has left 80 percent of global vaccine stocks in the hands of just 10 countries.

This situation was exacerbated by the administration of former US president Donald Trump, which last year attempted to withdraw from the WHO.

This opened a political vacuum that China immediately filled, allowing Beijing to engage in “vaccine diplomacy,” enhance its soft power and promote Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) vision of a Chinese “community of shared human destiny.”

CECC to lower virus alert to level 2

Taipei Times

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung attends the Central Epidemic Command Center’s daily news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center

A nationwide COVID-19 alert is to be lowered from level 3 to 2 on Tuesday, but strict border controls would remain, the government said yesterday.

The level 3 alert in place since May 19 is to end on Monday, with a level 2 alert in place from Tuesday until Aug. 9, the Executive Yuan said.

Beijing’s becoming brazen in its sins

Taipei Times Editorial

In an unprecedented move, a group of democratic nations led by the US, UK and EU in a joint statement on Tuesday accused the Chinese Ministry of State Security of having carried out a major cyberattack earlier this year and stealing data from at least 30,000 organizations worldwide, including governments, universities and firms in key industries. Western officials were reportedly perplexed by the attack’s brazen execution and unparalleled scale.

In an article on the attack, BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera wrote: “Western spies are still struggling to understand why Chinese behavior has changed.”

‘Taiwanese’ office to open in Lithuania

Taipei Times

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis speaks at a news conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 4.
Photo: Reuters

Taiwan is to establish a “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania,” the first office in Europe to be called Taiwanese, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday.

“It is an important diplomatic breakthrough,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) wrote on Facebook, thanking diplomatic personnel for the significant achievement.

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