Taiwan, feuding with China, gets vaccines from Japan

Taipei, Taiwan, June 4: A flight carrying 1.24 million doses of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine from Japan touched down in Taiwan on Friday to help the vaccine-starved island fight its largest outbreak since the pandemic began.

The donation underscores how geopolitics has come to impact the global vaccine rollout, as countries scramble to secure enough doses for their populations. Taiwan, a self-governing island short of doses, has blamed China for interfering in a potential deal for another vaccine.

Now it is more than doubling its vaccine supply thanks to Japan, which is trying to play a greater role in global vaccination distribution and accelerate its own slow ahead of the Olympics in July.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters on Friday that Japan was responding to a Taiwanese request, and that the donation reflects “Japan’s important partnership and friendship with Taiwan.”

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen echoed those comments, saying after the Japan Airlines flight landed that “we are witnessing once again the true friendship between Taiwan and Japan, built upon shared values and mutual help.”

Neither side mentioned an ongoing feud between Taiwan and China over the island's efforts to get the vaccine developed by rollout Tokyo

Pfizer and BioNTech.

Taiwan has signed contracts for 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 5.05 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, and 4.76 million doses of vaccines through COVAX, a U.N. program to distribute vaccines to low and middle-income countries. It is also pursuing the development of its own vaccines, which are currently in mid-stage testing.

However, given global supply constraints and manufacturing delays, it had only about 700,000 doses to vaccinate its population with last month, all from AstraZeneca. Japan reportedly considered sending vaccines to Taiwan through COVAX, but decided the process would take too long. —