Day: June 11, 2021

TAIPEI – People in Taiwan, which had held off COVID-19 throughout most the global pandemic, are panicking about their health and income this month as the island grapples with its first major outbreak and shutters businesses amid limited vaccine supplies.

Taiwan’s coronavirus total since the start of the global pandemic stood at 12,500 on Friday, with 385 deaths. More than 90% of the cases were recorded since May 15.

Officials in Taipei say their political rival China intervened in a vaccine import deal earlier in the year. Japan and the United States have announced vaccine donations this month to help compensate for the shortage as officials scramble to order imports and fast-track trials of a domestically produced vaccine.

People have become “really concerned” since mid-May and have begun looking for vaccines despite possible side effects, said Joanna Lei, CEO of Chunghua 21st Century Think Tank in Taiwan. Many Taiwanese with dual citizenship in the United States have hopped on U.S.-bound flights this month to get vaccines.

Taiwan is “far” from the double-digit vaccine rate that might offer “herd immunity”, she said. An estimated 1% of Taiwan’s nearly 24 million people were vaccinated as of mid-May.

“I think the really scary part is the government has no plan,” Lei said. “And they don’t have a real survey of the land because they did not do broad testing, so they actually have no clue about where things are happening.”

More than 84% of Taiwanese worry about relatives getting the coronavirus and about 65% say their income will be “hit”, according to a Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation survey released May 25. More than half of respondents called the current COVID-19 wave a “disaster” caused by humans rather than by nature.

“I see people are all quite nervous about whether their family members are going to get infected by this virus,” foundation Chairman You Ying-lung said. “You’ll find that a high proportion are very worried.”

Without vaccines, Taiwan is looking at an unknown period of forced business closures and income losses, particularly in events, recreation and restaurants. Those businesses have been shuttered or scaled back since May 15. Operators are expecting government stimulus aid if business dips far enough below pre-May 15 levels.

“For us in food and beverage, we should be optimistic about aid, because if it’s not enough, I can’t sustain the business,” said Chien Chia-hsing, owner of the 6-year-old Aussie Café in Taipei. His normal daily customer load of 50 has dropped to just a handful who get takeout. “I hope that the government can do its utmost to allocate money.”

Vaccine diplomacy

Japan sent 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week despite a protest from China, Tokyo-based Kyodo News Service reported. Washington will donate 750,000 doses, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth announced Sunday as she visited Taiwan with two other lawmakers.

“For over a year, we’ve seen that COVID-19 strikes without regard to national borders – and we know we won’t be able to truly end the COVID-19 pandemic at home without ending it everywhere,” the senator said on her website.

Washington and Tokyo are long-standing friends of Taiwan, as all three fret over territorial disputes or deeper political issues with China.

“You always want to help friends,” said Alex Chiang, associate professor of international politics at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “They have to show friendship and that they care about the people of Taiwan.”

Taiwanese officials blame China for standing in the way of foreign-made vaccines.

“Taiwan access to vaccines continues to be slowed down by Chinese interference, while they insist we buy Chinese made ones,” presidential spokesperson Kolas Yotaka said May 19 on Twitter.

Taiwan was approaching a deal with German pharmaceutical firm BioNTech in January for millions of vaccine doses, but interference by “external forces” threw off the agreement, health minister Chen Shih-chung told local media a month later without naming China directly.

Taiwan bars Chinese-made vaccines because of their poor record before COVID-19, Chen said in an interview in January. The government’s Central Epidemic Command Center would not say for this report how many vaccines it expects from foreign sources by year’s end but pointed to “insufficient” capacity to make them worldwide.

China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists lost to the Communists and rebased in Taipei. Beijing has threatened use of force, if needed, to take Taiwan and resents foreign assistance to the island.

Source: Voice of America

PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND, – Day one of the G-7 summit has concluded, in Cornwall, England, where leaders of seven wealthy democracies aim to lead the global fight against the pandemic and to “build back better” toward a greener, more prosperous and equitable future.

The summit is hosted by Britain and attended by leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. Representatives from the European Union also are attending, along with other guests — the heads of Australia, South Africa and South Korea. India’s prime minister joined via video link.

“This is a meeting that genuinely needs to happen,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this year’s host, as he opened the plenary session of leaders. “We need to make sure that we learn the lessons from the pandemic, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat some of the errors that we doubtless made in the course of the last 18 months or so.”

Johnson said that he wants the G-7 to be “building back better, building back greener, building back fairer, and building back more equal and in a more gender-neutral and perhaps more feminine way.”

While past G-7 meetings were marked with lavish banquets, massive delegations and media entourages, this year’s sessions are severely restricted. Masks, daily COVID-19 testing and other health protocols are stark reminders the coronavirus crisis is far from over.

“The world will look to the G-7 to apply our shared values and diplomatic might, to the challenge of defeating the pandemic and leading a global recovery,” said Johnson.

The pandemic caused leaders to skip last year’s summit. The last time the G-7 met in person was in Biarritz, France, in 2019.

G-7 pandemic plan

Johnson said the G-7 will announce a plan to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries, including 100 million doses from Britain.

Johnson’s announcement Thursday came after U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier in the day that his administration is donating 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, half of the G-7 vaccine trove.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the commitment but said it is not enough and production must be doubled.

“We need a concerted effort,” he told reporters at the G-7 via a video link from London. “For that we need a global vaccination plan.”

He proposed bringing together all the countries with the capability to produce the vaccines — or countries that could with the right support — into an emergency task force.

They would be supported by the World Health Organization, GAVI, COVAX and international financial institutions and would be involved in the production and equitable distribution of vaccines to the developing world.

Guterres also expressed support for lifting patents on vaccine technology, saying, “It’s obvious that we need to share the knowledge and share all the aspects necessary to allow for doubling the production of vaccines.”

Climate change

G-7 countries will commit to reduce CO2 emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, a change from the previously agreed 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise.

“The science has changed a bit. It’s become clear that 1.5 degrees is perhaps more important than we thought earlier,” said Samantha Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “This is really difficult to achieve. And so, this is a really significant commitment,” Gross added.

The group also agreed to no longer fund coal plants after the end of 2021, an important concession by Japan, which relies on them.

The G-7 communique on Sunday is expected to serve as a foundation ahead of Glasgow COP26, the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference in November, that Britain also will host.

Trade and economy

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday on Twitter that G-7 leaders at the summit will endorse Biden’s proposal for a minimum global tax rate of 15% that companies would have to pay regardless of where they are based.

The deal had been expected after G-7 finance officials backed the proposal last week. It aims to stop large multinational companies from seeking out tax havens and force them to pay more of their income to governments.

“America is rallying the world to make big multinational corporations pay their fair share so we can invest in our middle class at home,” Sullivan tweeted on Friday.

The G-7 has plenty of disagreements on trade, including long-running disputes over Airbus and Boeing subsidies, as well as steel and aluminum tariffs that then-President Trump imposed in 2018. But they are expected to focus on areas of common ground, including coming up with a commitment to uphold and strengthen the “rules-based multilateral trading system” and “international trade rules.” Members including the U.S. and Britain have often accused Beijing of undermining the multilateral trade system.

China, while not part of the group, has dominated the agenda. In a June 5 opinion piece in The Washington Post, Biden wrote that the G-7 will also be announcing a “high-standard alternative to China for upgrading physical, digital and health infrastructure that is more resilient and supports global development.”

The group is expected to include gender equality in their pandemic recovery strategy, to “build back fairer” toward an economy and education system that ensures women are the forefront of global recovery.

The G-7 countries are major trading partners, and collectively the group accounts for about half of the global economy.

Eden Project

At the end of the first day, leaders and their partners attended a reception with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton. The reception was held at the Eden Project — a botanical garden shaped like bio-domes that create a rainforest environment.

The G-7 summit ends on Sunday. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will continue their tour and attend Brussels-based summits with the European Union and NATO, and the president’s highly anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on Wednesday.

Source: Voice of America