Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has condemned the Chinese communist regime for blocking the island nation’s deal to obtain COVID-19 vaccines from German company BioNTech. At the same time, the regime has been pushing Chinese-made vaccines onto the island, a move described by one analyst as “vaccine warfare.”
The president, speaking at a meeting of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party on May 26, said that while orders for AstraZeneca’s and Moderna’s vaccines have been “smoothly” booked, the nation hasn’t been able to obtain BioNTech’s vaccine, which was co-developed with Pfizer.
“As for the German BioNTech company’s vaccine, we are close to completing the contract with the German factory, but due to the interference of China, we have not been able to complete it,” Tsai said. This is the first time that Taiwanese officials have publicly confirmed that the CCP has blocked Taiwan from obtaining the vaccine.
BioNTech declined to comment on Tsai’s remarks, but asserted that the company is “supportive of global vaccine supply,” according to Reuters.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) denied that it was preventing foreign companies from selling vaccines to Taiwan, and offered to provide Chinese-made vaccines to the island.
Chinese state-owned Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co. said on May 22 that it’s willing to provide Taiwan with its version of the BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Fosun and BioNTech signed an agreement to exclusively develop and sell COVID-19 vaccines using BioNTech’s mRNA technology for mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
In response, Tsai said that Taiwan will only buy directly from the original manufacturer of the vaccine, or negotiate purchases with the manufacturer through the COVAX global vaccine sharing scheme.