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Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
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27 May, 5 tweets, 1 min read
According to Mainichi Shimbun, the Japanese government is considering providing Taiwan with some AstraZeneca vaccines

news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/bre…
This will prove interesting to watch, if vaccine diplomacy is used to cement ties between Taiwan and other countries (as with shipments from the US and how the question of whether they are sent or not will be used as a metric to evaluate the strength of US-Taiwan relations)
It's hard to imagine another country in the region with as much good will towards Taiwan as Japan, of course
Still, I imagine this idea could be a trial balloon and could easily amount to nothing--Japan has very low rates of vaccinations right now as well and with the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, that could lead to an explosion of cases
The idea would probably be coming from the LDP, which seems to be intent on having the Olympics no matter what the cost--but it's also a question if they would have the political capital to do this

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More from @brianhioe

Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
Something else that will be key to watch tomorrow will be regarding the Tsai administration's justification for keeping the imminent arrival of Moderna vaccines under wraps until the last minute, citing the need for confidentiality in vaccine acquisition plans
This raises transparency concerns, which the Tsai administration has been attacked on, while the Tsai administration seems to fear last-minute sabotage, hence the secrecy

Local governments almost certainly don't have access to this information. Apart from pan-Blue mayors
clamoring for buying BNT from Fosun in past days, Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je was attacking the US, stating that the US had never provided vaccines to Taiwan during the pandemic so as to dismiss the possibility of vaccines coming from the US
Read 7 tweets
Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
DPP majority speaker Ker Chien-ming spoke with Terry Gou of FoxConn, who confirmed that he had been in talks with Fosun to buy 5 million doses of BNT--but that this fell through at the last minute for reasons that are unclear

cna.com.tw/news/aipl/2021…
Gou reportedly sought aid from Ker in this. So is it that China doesn't even want to sell to FoxConn, which is known for its pro-China leanings? Very strange. It could be that if there is Chinese interference, they may not want Taiwan to have vaccines at all
It's also possible that China only intends to sell to KMT-controlled local governments, viewing Gou as a bit of wild card it cannot control as much, since he's not subordinate to the KMT party structure and is independently wealthy
Read 4 tweets
Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
Reports that a company in an industrial zone in Zhonghe, New Taipei made an employee that was confirmed with COVID-19 by the hospital come into work for two days and refused to let them have off

mirrormedia.mg/story/20210527…
This took place on the justification they did not receive a notice from the Health Department but only the hospital--sometimes the hospital will contact confirmed COVID cases first, then the Health Department will follow up, due to tie-ups contacting everyone as quickly as hoped
It is feared that this will lead to the spread of COVID-19 in the industrial area. This could be punished with a one million NT fine
Read 4 tweets
Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
Reports the 150,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine will arrive in Taiwan tomorrow, as the first batch of Moderna to arrive in Taiwan. They will be delivered by China Airlines and depart from Luxembourg, stop in Dubai, and arrive tomorrow at 3:50 PM

setn.com/News.aspx?News…
This is to be verified, but Chen Shih-chung says he will report back on this later
Confirmed by Chen. There will be a week of quality control testing before these start to be distributed

cna.com.tw/news/firstnews…
Read 4 tweets
Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
Have a piece in @UoNARI_Taiwan insight today, arguing that idealization of Taiwan in the past year for having fought off COVID-19 and more recent fear-mongering about military threats faced by Taiwan are effectively two sides of the same coin--showing projection onto Taiwan
Though this piece was written a bit earlier in the current outbreak, I think this applies to bemoaning Taiwan's response as the flipside of earlier praise of it through a rose-tinted lens--both also strike me as two sides of the same coin
Sudden concern about military threats faced by Taiwan sometimes just strikes as the learning curve by people who never paid attention in the past, when Taiwan has faced these threats for decades
Read 5 tweets
Brian Hioe 丘琦欣 Profile picture
27 May
Minister of Health Chen revealing the timeline for discussions with BNT

8/20 - Discussions with BNT take place, but other discussions with other vendors also take place
11/11 - Another meeting with BNT, which is more severe
12/31 - BNT provides contract to be examined
1/6 - After reporting to the Executive Yuan, there is the decision to purchase, the electronic contract is sent back
1/8 - After sending the press release in both English and Chinese to BNT, BNT agrees to this
Four hours later, BNT asks for changing the part of the Chinese that says 我國

This is immediately agreed to and changed to Taiwan
Read 11 tweets

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