Taiwan

Xi’s useful idiots against free speech

On December 30, Ai Fen, director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central Hospital, got the lab results back about one of her patients who had a flulike illness. The words she read on the report made her blood run cold: ‘Sars coronavirus’. She circled the word ‘Sars’, took a photo and emailed it to a doctor at a neighboring hospital. Within hours, the photo had been sent to dozens of people in the Wuhan medical community. One of them sent a series of messages to a private group on WeChat, advising his colleagues to take precautions, and someone took screenshots of those messages and shared them more widely.

useful idiots

President Trump’s support for Taiwan is welcome

Over the coming weeks, a battle between Washington and Beijing over the inclusion of Taiwan as an observer at the World Health Organization will rage, reflecting the struggle between the People’s Republic of China and the United States over control over international institutions. Yet it also reveals the reality of the new cold war between the two countries, and the shift in focus of attention to ground-level tactics at the expense of grand strategies. Long forgotten in the shadow of China’s rise and the intensification of both contact and competition between the PRC and the United States has been the island nation of Taiwan.

taiwan

The best message the State Department could send Beijing and the WHO

A troubling pattern has emerged at the World Health Organization. In the wake of this global pandemic, it appears China has been misdirecting and misleading the rest of us about confirmed cases in their own country, with the help of their close financial partner, the WHO.As the WHO and parts of the American media laud China’s response to the pandemic, with NBC News even hailing them as a global leader as the US falls behind, several countries reported massive problems with faulty equipment and supplies.Shortly after China expelled American journalists from its borders, they stopped reporting new cases of COVID-19 altogether, despite Wuhan once again closing down its movie theaters.

taiwan

Why Taiwan blames Britain for their second wave of infections

From our UK edition

Since the first outbreak of coronavirus, Taiwan has been seen as an unlikely source of stability. Over 400,000 Taiwanese live and work on the Chinese mainland and, due to diplomatic tensions with Beijing, Taiwan is not a member of the World Health Organisation. Despite this, as infections began to rise in Japan and then exploded in South Korea, Taiwan’s daily increase of cases never surpassed five. The Taiwanese government’s robust response to illness, which has paralysed so many other parts of the world, garnered much international praise. But a fresh spike in cases has put Taiwan on the back foot. On Sunday, six new infections were confirmed, the highest number in a single day to date.