Category: Covid-19

A Wake-Up Call to Improve Factory Working Procedures in a Time of Crisis

Written by Chan-Yuan Wong, Ker-Hsuan Chien, and Mei-Chih Hu. As the world enters the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, Taiwan – previously acknowledged as a Covid-free nation – encountered a new outbreak in mid-May 2021. This wave of infection has been deemed critical, as the number of infection cases has surpassed 700, and the infectivity rate is as contagious as measles. To date, Taiwan encountered 635 death cases related to Covid-19 – of which 98% are attributed to the recent outbreak since 15 May 2021.

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The Political and Economic Implications from Taiwan’s Covid-19 resilience performance

Written by Chun-Chien Kuo. According to the latest Bloomberg Covid-19 Resilience Report, Taiwan’s ranking has slumped to 44th place in June from the 15th in May. Meanwhile, the support rates for President Tsai have declined dramatically. Taiwan had successfully controlled the Covid-19 virus for more than one year under the strict border control, and people had been luckily enjoying the near normal life without lockdown elsewhere. The economy gained positive momentum both from strong export and little affected domestic activities. The CECC Commander Chen, President Tsai and DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) had been rewarded with high political support for their well performance in fighting the Covid-19 virus. However …

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TI Viral Politics: Taiwan, China, and Covid vaccination

Written by Ian Inkster. On 28 May, just after the Taiwanese authorities had apparently rejected outright Beijing’s offer to supply Covid 19 vaccines to Taiwan, Hsiao Bi-khim was urgently requesting from the USA ‘access to safe and effective vaccines.’ By 3 June, we knew that Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines had been approved by both WHO and Covax Facility for distribution to other nations, that many millions of vaccines have been sent out from China to Africa and Asia, and that whatever the political interpretation, these vaccines were offered early to Taiwan free of charge.

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Harnessing national digital power to prevent COVID-19: the case of Taiwan

Written by Chih-Wei Chen. Over the past 18 months, the whole world has been severely challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused enormous numbers of infections and deaths, as well as economic recessions worldwide. Many countries took a series of actions to contain the spread of coronavirus, such as large-scale lockdowns and the provision of economic stimulate. Taiwan has often been positioned as a success story in terms of pandemic management. It did this largely by harnessing the national digital power, the core of which lies in the flexible and meaningful employment of technologies in governance, and supporting this with comprehensive policy planning for the whole society.

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Taiwan’s Non-Traditional Diplomacy During the Pandemic: The Case of Mexico

Written by Fabricio A. Fonseca. In the spring of 2020, the social media accounts of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Mexico City began to share posts made by Mexican federal legislators. In these posts, they showed appreciation for the donations made by Taiwan’s representatives in the country under the difficult circumstances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, those donations consisted of food baskets and eventually included thousands of face masks. The different images of people across Mexico receiving boxes with the slogan “Taiwan Can Help” (TCH) made me think about how authorities on the island were using different instruments associated with non-traditional diplomacy.

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